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Jtoiii  a  p/ioroiji(iji/i,  Copi/ritj/it  hi/  J.  E.  Punhi,  I'.iflnn. 

Governor-General  W.  Cameron   Forues.     Frontispiece. 


-  THE 


Philippine  Problem 


1898-1913 


BY 

FREDERICK   CHAMBERLIN 

AUTHOR  OF    "THE   BLOW   FROM   BEHIND,"    "AROUND 

THE  WORLD   IN   NINETY   DAYS,"    "IN  THE 

SHOE   STRING   COUNTRY,"  ETC. 


TLI.USTnATED 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY 


i54  r5' 


Copyright,  igij. 
By  Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  April,  1913 


•  •  •  * .  •  • 

•  •    •►«••• 


•    •  »  .»  ,«•  _•   • « .<  «      •    •    *  • 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Gushing  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Presswork  by  S.  J.  Parkhill  &  Co.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


XTo 


THE    MEMORY    OF    MY    CLOSEST    FRIEND 
FOR    MANY    YEARS 

MAJOR-GENERAL   OLIVER   OTIS   HOWARD 

U.  S.  A. 
AND    TO    THAT    OF    HIS    SON 

COLONEL   GUY    HOWARD 

U.  S.  A. 

HIS    FIRST-BORN,  WHO    WAS    KILLED 
IN    THE    PHILIPPINES 


2G0072 


INTRODUCTION 

This  book  is  an  effort  to  put  between  the 
covers  of  one  small  volume  all  that  the  students 
of  our  Philippine  problem  need  to  know  for  a 
mastery  of  the  subject  upon  all  its  broad  lines. 

The  first  chapter  comprehends  just  so  much 
of  the  history  and  geography  of  the  Islands  as 
is  necessary  for  this  purpose,  together  with  a 
succinct  account  of  the  task  as  it  first  presented 
itself  to  the  American  people. 

Beginning  with  the  second  chapter,  the  vol- 
ume becomes  an  account  of  what  we  have  tried 
to  accomplish  and  have  actually  attained, 
closing  with  a  study  of  the  present  needs  of 
the  situation  and  what  appears  to  be  the  prob- 
able outcome  of  the  future. 

The   author  has   no   point  to  make  further 

than  to  relate  the  facts  and  to  state  what  they 

demonstrate  to  him.     The  facts  must  be  known 

before    any    intelligent    understanding    of    the 

situation  confronting  us  in  Asiatic  waters  can 

be  possible. 

F.  C. 


vu 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

The  Problem  in  1898        .....  i 

Situation  and  extent  of  the  Islands  —  Brief  history  —  The 
friars  the  real  government  —  Commerce  discouraged  as  a  pol- 
icy —  Tribute  exacted  from  all  natives  —  No  system  of  justice 
—  Natives  purposely  kept  ignorant  —  Tagalogs  not  the  Filipi- 
nos —  Study  of  the  different  races  with  degree  of  civilization 
and  literacy  —  Less  than  one  tenth  could  read  and  write  in  any 
tongue  —  But  one  per  cent  could  read  and  write  in  any  language 
in  which  there  were  books  of  general  knowledge  or  news- 
papers—  The  rebellion  against  Spain  in  1898 — The  leaders 
induced  by  Spain  to  leave  the  Islands  for  a  money  consideration, 
all  of  which  is  secured  by  Aguinaldo  —  The  American  occu- 
pation begins. 

CHAPTER   II 
We  Begin         .......       62 

Our  international  obligations  —  President  McKinley  sends 
the  Schurman  Commission  to  study  the  Islands — 'Schurman  , 
Commission  reports  natives  incompetent  for  self-government, 
and  that  anarchy  would  follow  their  ascension  to  power  — 
The  Taft  Commission  makes  a  similar  finding  —  Particulars 
of  our  governmental  system  —  Extraordinary  powers  given  the 
local  government  by  American  Congress  —  Remarkable  num- 
ber of  natives  in  their  government  in  1903. 

CHAPTER   III 
The  Little  Red  Schoolhouse     ....        80 

General  Otis  opens  schools  eighteen  days  after  our  occupa- 
tion begins —  Profound  effect  of  this  upon  natives —  Teaching 

ix 


X  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

of  English  a  reversal  of  Spain's  policy — A  thousand  teachers 
come  from  America  —  Why  English  was  made  only  medium 
of  education  —  Sacrifices  and  services  of  early  American  in- 
structors—  Statistics  of  educational  transformation  —  The  na- 
tive teacher  —  Each  pupil  given  manual  training  —  Filipinos 
yet  desirous  of  only  primary  education  —  Lack  of  funds  — 
Remarkable  influence  of  introduction  of  athletic  sports. 

CHAPTER   IV 

The  Friar  Lands       .  .         .  .  .  ,103 

One  of  the  most  important  problems  in  the  Islands  —  Friars 
so  hated  that  all  had  to  fly  to  Manila  in  1898 — The  Pope 
consents  to  their  withdrawal  —  The  Insular  Government  pays 
$7,227,000  gold  —  Impossibility  of  disposing  of  the  lands 
because  of  agitation  against  capital. 

CHAPTER   V 

The  Fifth  Labor  of  Hercules  .  .  .  .113 

The  toll  of  death  under  Spain  —  The  cholera  epidemic  of 
1 902-1 90  3  —  General  anaemia  due  to  parasites  reaching  system 
through  infected  water  —  How  Manila  has  been  made  a  sani-  ' 
tary  city  —  Six  hundred  artesian  wells  the  most  potent  control 
of  contagious  diseases  —  We  enforce  sanitary  regulations  — 
Universal  vaccination  compelled  —  We  establish  a  leper  colony 
—  Free  medicines  and  surgery  —  The  rinderpest  —  High  infant 
mortality  in  Manila  —  Schools  for  nurses  —  Sanitation  taught 
in  all  public  schools. 

CHAPTER   VI 

Good  Roads     ,  .  .  ,  •  •  .123 

No  reliable  roads  in  the  Islands  when  we  took  them  — 
Why  all  construction  must  be  permanent  and  maintained  at  a 
high  degree  of  repair  —  First  appropriation  made  by  civil  gov- 
ernment was  one  million  dollars  for  good  roads  —  Why  this 


CONTENTS  xi 

PAGE 

sum  and  two  million  dollars  more  was  wasted  —  W.  Cameron 
Forbes  comes  as  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Police  —  The 
only  big  business  man  ever  in  the  Insular  Government  —  He 
champions  good  roads  with  great  vigor  and  intelligence  — 
How  he  at  last  obtained  success  —  Permanent  roads  in  all  di- 
rections, and  adequate  system  of  maintenance. 

CHAPTER   VII 
Other  Improvements  ,  .  ,         ,         •      '39 

The  insignificant  telegraph  and  cable  system  under  Spain 
destroyed  before  restoration  of  peace  —  We  install  a  modern 
system  of  electrical  communication  between  all  the  important 
islands  and  centers  —  We  increase  the  railroad  mileage  from 
1 20  to  more  than  500  —  Ten  millions  in  gold  expended  in  the 
important  harbors  —  Manila  only  port  in  Orient  beside  whose 
piers  a  ship  drawing  thirty  feet  may  lie  —  Coast  and  geodetic 
work  —  Market  provided  for  out-of-the-way  places  by  govern- 
ment vessels  —  A  postal  service  of  the  first  class  throughout  all 
the  Archipelago. 

CHAPTER   VIII 

The  Omnibus  Clause  ,  .  .  ,  .154 

Postal  savings-banks  —  Tjjeir  great  popularity  with  the  na- 
tives —  Notable  influence  of  the  constabulary  —  The  first  cen- 
sus of  the  Philippines  —  We  give  the  Islands  a  lower  house  of 
Congress  —  But  three  per  cent  of  the  Filipinos  compose  the 
electorate  —  Road  and  trail  work  among  the  savage  peoples  — 
How  the  Filipinization  of  the  governmental  service  has  pro- 
gressed —  Some  things  the  Filipinos  do  not  yet  want  to  learn 
—  Why  natives  cannot  be  more  rapidly  taken  into  their  gov- 
ernment. 

CHAPTER   IX 

The  American  Personnel  .  .         .  .  ,169 

High  attainments  of  our  most  important  officials  in  the 
Islands  —  Young  experts  filling  the  executive  places  —  Ameri- 


xli  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

cans  in  the  service  compelled  to  leave  the  Islands  at  stated 
periods  for  their  health  —  Revolution  in  manner  of  living 
since  the  early  days  —  The  beach-comber  now  only  in  history 

—  The  harm  he  and  other  dissolute  Americans  vjrrought  — 
Our  first  American  treasurers  largely  dishonest. 

CHAPTER   X 

The  Business  Expansion      .  .  .  ,  ,176 

Total  imports  and  exports  averaged  thirty-five  million  dollars 
under  Spain  —  In  five  years  under  us  they  increased  to  sixty- 
six  million  dollars,  and  in  1 9 1 2  reached  the  figure  of  one  hun- 
dred and  five  million  dollars  —  Quickening  effect  of  the  Payne 
Tariff  Bill  —  Great  growth  in  the  tobacco  and  sugar  industries 

—  Showing  of  the  internal  revenues  —  A  complete  industrial 
revolution  accomplished. 

CHAPTER   XI 
The  Money  Cost  to  America    ,  ,  ,  .183 

Since  1902  the  expense  of  the  Islands  to  the  United  States 
has  been  only  for  the  support  of  our  armed  forces —  How  that 
expense  may  be  itemized  —  Ten  million  dollars  per  annum  the 
average  —  Credits  that  must  be  made  to  the  account. 

CHAPTER   XII 
The  Problem  IN1913        .  .  .  .  ,191 

Our  policy  in  1913  —  The  gente  illustrada  opposed  to 
introduction  of  necessary  capital  —  The  clamor  for  independ- 
ence —  Consideration  of  the  three  possible  courses  open  to  the 
United  States  —  Evidences  of  progress  —  Consequences  of  our 
continued  occupation  —  The  uncertainties  of  the  future. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 

Governor-General  W.  Cameron  Forbes   .  .    Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

Manila.      After  a  Rain  .....  6 

The  Manila  of  1898.      Nipa  District       .  .  .22 

The  Manila  of  1898.      Typical  Native  Shanties  .        22 

The   Manila  of  1898.      Common   Scene  in   Native 

Quarter       .......        26 

The  Manila  of  1898.      Nipa  Houses  of  Poorer  Class        26 
Manila.      Milk  Venders,  Old  Style  .  .  .34 

Cultivating  Rice  near  Manila  ....        42 

Negrito     ........        50 

Moros  of  Mindanao     ......        5^ 

Schoolhouse  built  by  Benguet  Igorots  at  Kabayan  .  88 
Present  Type  of  Smaller  Concrete  Schoolhouse  .  .        96 

Present  Type  of  Larger  Concrete  Schoolhouse   .  .        96 

House  in  Farola  District  where  Cholera  first  began  in 

Manila        .  .  .  .  .  .  .114 

Burning  Cholera-infected  Houses  in  Farola   District, 

Manila       .  .  .  .  .  .  .114 

Manila.  Tienda  (Shop)  before  Sanitary  Repairs  .  118 
Manila.      Tienda  after  Sanitary  Repairs   .  .  .118 

Benguet    Road.        Lower    Section    of   Zigzag    from 

Camp  Boyd  .  .  .  .  .  .136 

The  Old.      Natives  threshing  Rice  with  Their  Feet. 

Bulacan  Province  .  .  .  .  ,156 


xiu 


xiv         LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING  PAGE 

The  New.      American  Machinery  threshing  Rice        ,      156 

Bontoc  Igorot  of  the  Constabulary  at  Three  Periods  of 

Service        .  .  .  .  .  .  .160 

Filipinos    in    Our    Army.       Maccabebe    Scouts    who 

captured  Aguinaldo        .  .  ,  .  .164 

Highest  Types  of  the  Tagalog  Gente  Illustrada,  Gov- 
ernors of  Tagalog  Provinces  in  1904  .  .      228 


THE    PHILIPPINE 
PROBLEM 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PROBLEM   IN   1898 

Situation  and  extent  of  the  Islands  —  Brief  history 
—  The  friars  the  real  government  —  Commerce 
discouraged  as  a  policy  —  Tribute  exacted  from 
all  natives  —  No  system  of  justice  —  Natives 
purposely  kept  ignorant  —  Tagalogs  not  the 
Filipinos  —  Study  of  the  different  races  with 
degree  of  civilization  and  literacy  —  Less  than 
one  tenth  could  read  and  write  in  any  tongue  — 
But  one  per  cent  could  read  and  write  in  any 
language  in  which  there  were  books  of  general 
knowledge  or  newspapers  —  The  rebellion  against 
Spain  in  1898  —  The  leaders  induced  by  Spain 
to  leave  the  Islands  for  a  money  consideration, 
all  of  which  is  secured  by  Aguinaldo  —  The 
American  occupation  begins. 

The  Philippines  were  discovered  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  upon  May  Day, 
1898,  when  Commodore  Dewey  met  the  Spanish 
fleet  in  Manila  Bay.  Before  that,  probably 
not  one  American  In  a  hundred  even  recollected 
the  Archipelago's  existence. 


2         THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

And  yet  the  Philippines,  with  an  area  of 
115,029  square  miles,  occupy  more  land  surface 
than  all  New  England  and  New  York  combined. 
They  number  3 141  islands,  of  which  only  1668 
have  been  named.  > 

The  group  lies  in  an  almost  perfect  triangle, 
with  its  most  acute  angle  reaching  up  to  a  north 
latitude  of  21°,  which  is  that  of  Honolulu,  of 
Vera  Cruz,  and  the  center  of  the  Sahara.  This 
apex  is  a  round  thousand  miles  southwest  of 
Japan,  and  five  hundred  southeast  of  Hong- 
kong. The  western  side  of  this  triangle,  eleven 
hundred  miles  long,  rests  upon  Borneo.  Its 
eastern  side,  of  about  the  same  dimension,  runs 
to  the  Celebes  Islands,  between  which  and 
Borneo  we  may  construct  the  base,  with  a  line 
through  the  Celebes  and  Sulu  Seas,  a  length  of 
about  seven  hundred  miles,  6°  above  the  equa- 
tor, which  is  the  latitude  of  the  northern  bound- 
ary of  Brazil,  the  southern  boundary  of  Egypt, 
and  of  Colombo  in  Ceylon.  The  group  is 
structurally  connected  with  Borneo  and  the 
Celebes  by  three  isthmuses,  which  are  partly 
submerged. 

It  cannot  be  determined  who  was  the  first  for- 
eign visitor  to  the  Philippines,  nor  when  he 
arrived.  Neither  can  we  tell  more  definitely 
of  the  origin  of  the  people  this  first  adventurer 
found  there,  or  of  their  predecessors,  if  there 
were  any.     The  earliest  authentic  records  upon 


THE  PROBLEM  IN  1898  3 

this  subject  are  those  in  Chinese  describing  a 
trading  voyage  in  the  thirteenth  century.  The 
three  hundred  years  thereafter  are  blank. 
Then  came  the  Portuguese  navigator  Magellan, 
in  the  employ  of  Spain..  He  arrived  in  1521 
only  to  meet  death,  after  raising  the  flag  of  his 
new  sovereign,  upon  Mactan,  a  small  island 
just  south  of  Cebu,  while  attempting  to  conquer 
a  local  ruler. 

The  ethnologists  seem  to  agree  that  the  Ne- 
gritos, the  present  pigmies  of  the  Islands,  were 
the  original  inhabitants  and  that  their  dominion 
was  overthrown  by  the  Malays,  the  forbears 
of  practically  all  the  Filipinos,  as  we  know 
them.  It  is  to  the  Malay,  then,  that  we  must 
look  for  the  ancestral  race  of  the  Islands  —  and 
except  in  physique  and  the  unimportant  dif- 
ferences due  to  location,  the  Filipinos  are 
Malays,  as  pure  as  any  others ;  their  charac- 
teristics, their  natural  instincts,  are  the  same  as 
those  of  their  brothers  upon  the  mainland  to 
the  westward,  and  upon  the  islands  of  the  Pa- 
cific and  Indian  Oceans. 

Four  years  after  Magellan,  Del  Cano,  also 
in  the  employ  of  Spain,  called  at  Mindanao, 
but  did  no  more  than  call.  For  some  forty 
years  thereafter  no  white  man  visited  the 
Islands  —  which  had  already  been  given  their 
present  name  in  honor  of  Philip  II  —  until 
came  the  man  who  may  properly  be  called  the 


4        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

Father  of  the  Philippines,  Miguel  Lopez  de 
J^egaspi.  This  explorer,  with  an  expedition  of 
four  hundred  Spanish  soldiers  and  sailors,  left 
Mexico,  where  he  was  in  the  Spanish  service, 
warranted  as  governor  and  captain-general  for 
life  of  all  the  islands  he  might  occupy.  He  came 
to  Cebu  in  1565  and  erected  the  first  structures 
of  white  men,  a  fort  and  several  dwellings.  His 
most  famous  companion  was  an  Augustinian 
monk,  Andres  de  Urdaneta,  who,  with  four 
others  of  his  order,  was  intrusted  with  the 
spiritual  care  of  such  races  as  were  conquered. 
The  adventurers  survived,  chiefly  by  baptiz- 
ing the  niece  of  a  native  ruler  and  marrying  her 
to  a  Spaniard ;  and  when  they  baptized  her 
uncle  a  little  later,  Cebu  became  friendly 
territory.  In  1566  came  Juan  de  Salcedo, 
grandson  of  Legaspi  and  a  youth  of  but  seven- 
teen years,  who  was  destined  to  become  the 
conqueror  of  the  Philippines.  He  was  but 
twenty-one,  in  1570,  when  he  was  one  of  the 
leaders  of  a  successful  expedition  against  Ma- 
nila, then  with  its  environs  a  place  of  some  thirty 
thousand  Malays.  In  1571  Legaspi  organized 
the  government  of  Cebu  upon  Spanish  lines, 
dividing  all  the  natives  as  slaves  among  his 
favorites.  This  done,  he  set  out  for  Manila, 
whose  inhabitants  burned  it  upon  seeing  his 
approach.  The  modern  city,  as  we  know  it, 
was  then  founded  upon  the  ruins  with  stately 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  5 

Catholic  ceremonies,  its  government  confided 
to  alcaldes,  and  its  domain  divided  among  the 
conquerors  so  that  each  had  a  plot  upon  which 
to  build  his  home.  The  native  sovereign  was 
baptized  and  his  name  changed  to  Felipe  in 
honor  of  the  Spanish  monarch ;  the  mission- 
aries spread  over  Luzon  as  rapidly  as  their 
movements  could  be  made  safely,  and  young 
Salcedo  proceeded  to  do  the  rest  of  the  convert- 
ing with  the  sword.  Salcedo,  though,  to  do 
him  justice,  was  a  benevolent  conqueror,  and 
became  a  hero  to  the  natives,  being  ultimately 
canonized  in  their  history  to  a  place  second  only 
to  that  of  his  grandfather,  who  lived  but  a  year 
following  his  gaining  of  Manila.  In  two  or 
three  years,  the  entire  Archipelago  was  under 
Spanish  domination,  except  the  present  prov- 
ince of  Cagayan,  the  most  northern  on  Luzon, 
and  Mindanao  and  the  Sulu  group  at  the  ex- 
treme south,  the  conquered  districts  having  a 
total  population  of  about  six  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand. 

In  the  decade  following  1580,  the  Islands 
were  made  to  feel  the  heavy  hand  which  sooner 
or  later  has  settled  down  like  a  pestilence  upon 
all  of  Spain's  colonial  possessions.  In  the  year 
mentioned,  a  new  regime  came  into  power  and 
with  it  a  fresh  governor  with  a  life  tenure  and 
immunity  from  any  oversight  by  Madrid.  He 
came  at  his  own  expense  with  a  choice  crew  of 


6         THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

his  own  picking,  and  then  the  Philippines  for 
the  first  time  were  introduced  to  that  principle 
of  Spanish  colonizing  officials  —  that  a  colonial 
office  is  a  private  asset  and  not  a  public  trust. 
The  alcaldes,  the  chief  magistrates  of  Manila, 
who  had  theretofore  been  two  in  number,  were 
increased  to  seventeen,  a  fair  example  of  what 
took  place  wherever  an  office  could  be  found  for 
any  favorite  of  the  new  governor.  Bishop 
Salazar  at  the  time  wrote  of  these  officials, 
"They  came  poor  and  with  scant  salaries,  and 
they  deprived  the  Philippines  of  rice  from  their 
fields  and  all  the  other  harvested  products  they 
could  get." 

The  fines  that  were  imposed  by  the  magis- 
trates became  their  private  fortunes.  No  com- 
pensation was  made  to  the  natives  for  labor 
rendered  to  Spaniards,  and  whether  taxes  were 
or  were  not  collected  became  dependent  upon 
the  ability  of  the  taxed  to  make  terms  for  non- 
payment. The  friars  were  as  black  as  the  lay- 
men, the  soldiery,  and  the  officials ;  and  right 
there  was  laid  the  foundation  of  that  hatred  of 
religious  orders  that  has  persisted  until  now. 

One  result  of  the  complaints  carried  to  Ma- 
drid was  the  king's  decision  that  the  remedy  for 
the  outrages  was  to  send  as  many  missionaries 
as  could  be  made  available,  and  the  Franciscan, 
the  Dominican,  and  the  Recoleto  friars  came  in 
shiploads,  following  the  Augustinians  and  the 


'^      ' 


•4 


Manila.      After  a  Rain. 


cc 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  7 

Jesuits.  These  orders  were  in  continual  alter- 
cation, and  they  even  denied  the  authority  of 
the  governor  of  the  Islands,  and  did  not  hesitate 
to  lead  open  rebellion  against  his  administra- 
tion. They  incited  the  assassination  of  at 
least  one  governor,^  and  all  historians  have 
agreed  that  the  friars  were  responsible  for  the 
maladministrations  that  followed  one  another 
with  almost  relentless  progression.  By  the 
opening  of  the  seventeenth  century,  the  friar 
landholdings  were  immense,  and  became  sub- 
jects of  official  inquiry;  but  no  inquiry  was 
conducted  too  far,  for  the  meddlers  were  in- 
formed by  the  archbishop  resident  that  if  they 
persisted  in  the  inquisition  he  would  excommu- 
nicate them.  This  threat  was  undoubtedly  ap- 
plied at  all  other  times  whenever  the  needs  were 
sufficiently  pressing,  and  before  long  all  govern- 
ors fell  into  the  custom  of  confirming  any  titles 
to  real  estate  that  the  friars  said  they  owned. 
Nor  did  the  monasteries  stop  at  this ;  they 
defied  the  authority  of  the  Pope  himself  to  sub- 
ject them  to  his  control ;  and  every  time  his 
representatives  tried  to  enforce  their  rule,  the 
friars  met  them  with  stern  refusals,  and  in  each 
instance  came  off  victorious.  The  king  gave 
especial  instructions  that  the  Pope  was  to  be 
obeyed,  but  to  no  avail ;  and  when  the  monarch 

^  T.  H.  Pardo  de  Tavera,  "History  of  Philippines,"  vol.  I,  Cen- 
sus P.  I.,  pp.  316-317. 


o 


8         THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

pressed  the  contention,  he  was  informed  by  the 
heads  of  the  orders  that  they  would  withdraw 
altogether  from  the  Islands  if  they  were  not  let 
alone  —  and  the  king  surrendered. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  the  best  lands 
were  claimed  by  the  friars,  and  every  priest 
was  wealthy.  It  was  common  for  one  of  this 
class  to  have  every  need  provided  for  by  his 
parishioners  while  at  the  same  time  he  enjoyed 
an  annual  income  of  ten  thousand  dollars  from 
the  rentals  of  the  lands  he  claimed  as  his  private 
property.  It  is  also  matter  of  record  that  they 
incited  a  wholesale  massacre  of  all  foreigners 
in  the  Islands  on  one  occasion  not  yet  a 
century  past,  upon  the  excuse  that  these  stran- 
gers had  poisoned  the  water  supply  and  brought 
j)-  on  cholera,  when  the  truth  was  that  the  mas- 
^'  ^acre  was  planned  to  checkmate  the  power  of 
the  foreigners,  whose  every  act  lessened  the 
control  of  the  church.  In  other  words,  the 
church  was  supreme  —  and  not  alone  through 
the  methods  described,  but  by  the  very  laws 
of  the  temporal  throne  of  the  mother  country. 
For  example,  no  formal  complaint  of  an  alleged 
crime  by  any  inhabitant  became  of  legal  effect 
until  the  local  curate  had  set  his  approval 
thereon.  No  financial  report,  no  enrolling  of 
natives  in  military  service,  and  no  other  official 
document  became  effective  until  viseed  by  the 
priest.     Then,  too,  to  cement  this  control,  it  was 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  9 

illegal  for  any  priest  who  was  not  a  Spaniard '^^ 
to  come  to  the  Islands.  Their  domination, 
therefore,  was  complete.  If  there  was  anything 
that  they  wanted,  they  took  it,  and  then  either 
traded  favors  with  or  controlled  the  temporal 
power,  until  their  possession  was  confirmed ; 
and  from  1580  until  almost  1900  they  success- 
fully defied  God,  in  the  Pope,  and  Man,  in  the 
monarchs  of  Spain  —  and  even  we  could  not 
cut  the  knot.  We  could  only  untie  it  with 
money. 

Commerce  was  throttled  by  deliberate  pol- 
icy. The  Islands  were  permitted  to  carry  on 
trade  with  no  European  nation  except  Spain. 
At  first  they  could  not  barter,  even  with  Span- 
ish colonies,  but  this  ban  was  later  modified 
to  permit  the  traverse  to  Mexico  of  one  ship 
a  year,  of  a  fixed  maximum  tonnage  and  a 
maximum  value  of  cargo.  Upon  its  return 
voyage,  this  vsole  bottom  could  bring  only  a 
stated  sum  of  money,  and  any  consignor  on 
an  outgoing  ship,  no  matter  how  insignificant, 
was  compelled  to  attend  his  goods  in  his  own 
person,  until  they  were  actually  delivered  to  the 
consignee.  Not  a  dollar's  worth  could  be  le- 
gally sold  to  anybody  residing  in  Mexico,  the 
one  important  customer  then  in  the  New  World, 
because,  for  one  reason,  the  merchants  of 
Cadiz  and  Seville  found  that  such  a  trade  would 
mean  competition  with  their  monopoly. 


lo       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

Among  other  restrictions  imposed  was  a  rule 
that  nobody  could  ship  goods  who  was  not  a  mem- 
ber of  the  boarcl_oi„txade.  This  meant  that  the 
applicant  must  have  resided  in  the  Islands  for  a 
certain  term  of  years,  besides  possessing  property 
to  the  value  of  eight  thousand  dollars.  He  also 
had  to  contribute  his  proportion  of  a  present  to 
the  naval  officer  in  command  of  the  ship,  this 
donation  amounting  to  twenty  thousand  dollars 
for  each  round  voyage.  In  addition,  the  prospec- 
tive shipper  had  to  contribute  from  twenty-five 
to  forty  per  cent  of  the  value  of  his  consign- 
ment to  certain  aldermen,  members  of  the  army, 
or  other  petty  officials  who  needed  money. 
The  method  by  which  this  extortion  was  car- 
ried out  was  for  the  government  to  issue  to 
these  hangers-on  gratuitous  permits  to  ship 
goods  in  a  particular  bottom,  documents  which 
cost  other  people  a  large  sum  of  money.  These 
permits,  thus  gratuitously  given,  stated  on  the 
face  that  they  could  only  be  sold  to  members  of 
the  board  of  trade.  The  results  are  easily  im- 
agined, besides  being  recorded  by  writers  whose 
revelations  have  not  been  challenged.  The 
bona  fide  shipper  appeared  at  the  wharf  with  his 
goods,  after  submitting  to  the  foregoing  pay- 
ment to  the  fund  for  the  captain,  and  applied 
for  a  permit  to  put  his  goods  on  board.  He 
was  informed  that  all  the  permits  had  been 
issued  and  there  was  therefore  no  room  for  his 


THE  PROBLEM  IN    1898  11 

shipment.  Thereupon  he  was  obliged  to  have 
recourse  to  the  gratuitous  holders  of  these  very 
permits.  It  was  common  for  the  merchant  thus 
to  be  mulcted  for  five  hundred  dollars  before  he 
could  put  on  board  goods  the  total  value  of  which 
would  not  exceed  twice  that  amount.  Of  course 
there  was  a  division  of  this  plunder  between  the 
officials  who  first  issued  the  permits  and  those 
who  sold  them.  These  practices  obtained,  with 
intermissions  of  negligible  length,  for  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  then  were  modified 
gradually ;  but  it  was  not  until  E ngl a nd_ forced 
Spain  to^open  Manila  to"foreign  trade  in  jSjjj 
that  foreigners  could  become  established  there 
and  do  business  in  a  rational  manner. 

For  its  revenues,  the  course  of  the  govern- 
ment was  hardly  more  defensible.  Every  native 
from  the  beginning  had  to  pay  a  tribute  for 
himself  and  for  his  wife,  if  he  had  one ;  the  gov- 
ernment made  tobacco  a  monopoly ;  stamped 
paper  was  universally  introduced ;  papal  bulls 
were  sold  to  those  who  could  be  made  to  be- 
lieve that  they  needed  them  at  the  exorbitant 
price  fixed ;  and  cock  fighting  was  imported  so 
that  the  government  could  charge  for  licensing 
it.  As  late  as  1834,  the  insular  revenues  were 
increased  by  government  traffic  in  opium,  and 
in  1850  by  setting  up  a  lottery.  All  customs 
were  collected  on  an  ad  valorem  basis,  and  the 
assessing  officials  were  never  sure  of  the  value 


12       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

until  they  learned  how  much  money  the  con- 
signee had  and  just  how  much  he  needed  the 
consignment.  Every  native  had  to  give  forty 
days'  work  to  the  officials  in  his  vicinity  or  pay 
a  fine,  —  which  oppression  obtained  even  up  to 
1884. 

As  to  justice,  and  the  impartial,  scientific, 
steady  administration  of  it,  we  must  say  that 
it  was  unknown.  The  courts  were  all  presided 
over  by  Spaniards  no  better  and  no  worse  than 
the  men  who  filled  other  governmental  positions 
out  there ;  and  the  people  as  a  whole  learned 
that  fines  and  imprisonment  depended  upon  the 
purse  and  influence  of  the  one  accused.  It  was 
common  practice  for  a  judge  to  study  the  de- 
cisions of  his  predecessor  with  the  view  to  re- 
opening a  decided  case  as  a  means  by  which  his 
own  income  might  be  augmented ;  for  the  sala- 
ries were  small,  as,  indeed,  were  the  salaries  of 
most  officials.  Spain  worked  on  the  estab- 
lished theory  that  a  colonial  official  was  going 
to  be  corrupt  anyway,  and  that  it  was  thus  a 
waste  of  governmental  finances  to  pay  him  any 
stipend ;  all  the  government  allowed  him  was 
the  office.  The  judges,  their  clerks  and  petty 
officials,  usually  many  more  in  number  than 
were  needed,  and  all  employed  upon  the  basis 
just  stated,  multiplied  the  required  proceedings 
and  trials,  invented  needless  rules  and  docu- 
ments, all  of  which  cost  the  litigants  money  and 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  13 

increased  the  receipts  of  the  officers.^  It  was 
a  common  thing  for  a  rich  man  to  spend  years 
in  jail  without  any  hearing  upon  his  case,  before 
he  would  submit  to  the  terms  by  which  he 
could  secure  his  release.  At  the  time  of  the 
beginning  of  our  occupation,  ninety  men  were 
found  in  one  of  the  Manila  prisons  in  this  situa- 
tion. I  recall  a  visit  upon  one  occasion  to  an 
old  man  in  Manila  who  had  been  thus  deprived 
of  his  liberty  for  more  than  ten  years.  Before 
he  went  there,  he  secured  his  freedom  by  a  bribe 
of  half  his  fortune,  only  to  be  reincarcerated 
when  the  court  learned  that  he  had  not  sur- 
rendered all  he  had,  and  to  be  informed  that 
upon  delivery  of  the  balance  he  could  go  his  way. 
After  several  years,  he  was  about  to  yield,  when 
our  troops  arrived  and  set  up  a  court  that  would 
listen  to  an  application  for  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus. 

Upon  the  authority  of  John  Foreman,  of 
the  Royal  Geographical  Society,  and  the  author 
of  what  is  universally  admitted  to  be,  up  to 
1906,  the  most  authoritative  historical  work 
concerning  the  Islands,  I  am  able  to  cite  the 
following  case  as  typical.  A  planter  in  Negros 
Island  was  charged  with  homicide.  The  local 
court  discharged  him,  but  the  man,  wise  in  his 
generation,  hurried  to  Manila  with  Foreman  to 

1  Blair  and  Robertson,  "The  Philippine  Islands,"  vol.  LI,  pp. 
220,  221. 


14       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

get  the  Supreme  Court,  the  highest  court  in  the 
Islands,  to  confirm  his  sentence.  Here  he  was 
confronted  with  a  demand  for  legal  expenses  so 
enormous  that  he  could  only  hope  to  meet  them 
by  mortgaging  his  plantation  for  every  dollar 
it  would  bring,  and  when  he  had  spent  that  in 
vain.  Foreman  loaned  him  two  hundred  dollars 
to  supply  the  deficiency,  and  they  returned, 
convinced  that  the  matter  was  disposed  of  for 
all  time.  To  their  consternation,  however, 
it  was  not  long  before  a  newly  appointed  judge 
in  the  local  tribunal  had  the  man  rearrested 
and  sentenced  to  eight  years'  imprisonment, 
comforted  by  the  assurance  of  his  lawyer  that 
if  he  had  sufficient  means  the  matter  could 
perhaps  soon  be  arranged. 

If  anybody  be  inclined  to  think  that  my  con- 
clusions are  too  severe,  he  may  refer  to  Mr. 
Foreman's  work.^     There  he  says  : 

"No  one  experienced  in  the  Colony  ever 
thought  of  privately  prosecuting  a  captured 
brigand,  for  a  criminal  or  civil  lawsuit  in  the 
Philippines  was  one  of  the  worst  calamities 
that  could  befall  a  man.  Between  notaries, 
procurators,  barristers,  and  sluggish  progress 
of  the  courts,  a  litigant  was  fleeced  of  his  money, 
often  worried  into  a  bad  state  of  health,  and 
kept  in  horrible  suspense  for  years.     It  was  as 

1  John   Foreman,  "The   Philippine   Islands,"  pp.    239  et  seq. 
(London ;  T.  Fisher  Unwin.) 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  ij 

hard  to  get  the  judgment  executed  as  it  was  to 
win  the  case.  Even  when  the  question  at  issue 
was  supposed  to  be  settled,  a  defect  in  the 
sentence  could  always  be  concocted  to  reopen 
the  whole  affair.  If  the  case  had  been  tried 
and  judgment  given  under  Civil  Code,  a  way 
was  often  found  to  convert  it  into  a  criminal 
case ;  and  when  apparently  settled  under  the 
Criminal  Code,  a  flaw  could  be  discovered  under 
the  Laws  of  the  Indies,  or  the  Siete  Partidas,  or 
the  Roman  Law,  or  the  Novisima  RecopilaciSn, 
or  the  Antigueros  JueroSj  Decrees,  Royal  Orders, 
Ordendnzas  de  huen  Gobierno,  and  so  forth,  by 
which  the  case  could  be  reopened. 

"Availing  one's  self  of  the  dilatoriness  of  the 
Spanish  law,  it  was  possible  for  a  man  to  occupy 
a  house,  pay  no  rent,  and  refuse  to  quit  on 
legal  grounds  during  a  couple  of  years  or  more. 
A  person  who  had  not  a  cent  to  lose  could  perse- 
cute another  of  means  by  a  trumped-up  accusa- 
tion until  he  was  ruined,  by  an  ^information 
de  pobreza^  —  a  declaration  of  poverty  —  which 
enabled  the  persecutor  to  keep  the  case  going 
as  long  as  he  chose  without  needing  money  for 
fees." 

When  the  Spaniard  first  came,  the  tribes  he 
visited  had  alphabets  and  wrote  upon  leaves. 
As  rapidly  as  the  friars  extended  their  outposts, 
they  usually  established  what  they  termed 
schools,  but  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  were  not 


i6       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

such  at  all  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word. 
The  primary  object  of  these  institutions  was 
not  education  but  evangelization.  There  was 
no  system  of  general  character  in  any  part  of 
the  Islands,  each  priest  setting  up  his  school 
when  and  where  he  pleased,  and  giving  it  a  curric- 
ulum arranged  by  the  same  authority.  Nobody 
except  the  friars  had  anything  at  all  to  say  about 
education,  and  In  addition  to  reading  and  writ- 
ing nothing  was  taught  that  was  not  of  a  re- 
ligious character,  such  as  lives  of  the  saints, 
their  sacrifices  and  doctrines.  No  book  could 
be  brought  into  the  Islands  which  had  not 
passed  the  censorship  of  the  church  officials  at 
Manila,  and  their  ban  descended  upon  every- 
thing that  would  tell  of  any  country  except 
Spain ;  and  of  that  only  what  was  greatly  in  her 
favor  succeeded  in  reaching  the  people.  The 
friars  would  not  teach  Spanish  to  the  natives, 
because  that  would  enable  them  to  understand 
the  governmental  officials,  which  would  destroy 
the  great  influence  the  friars  possessed  over  the 
natives  on  account  of  being  the  only  persons  who 
could  act  as  their  interpreters  in  dealing  with 
officialdom  whose  members,  as  a  rule,  knew  little 
or  nothing  of  the  many  dialects.  The  priest  was 
in  absolute  control  in  his  parish,  the  ignorant 
people  looking  to  him  as  the  man  who  could 
condemn  them  to  everlasting  torment  or  alone 
save  them  from  it.     His  word   was   the  final 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  17 

law,  and  the  crimes  committed  by  these  priests, 
for  whose  conduct  there  was  no  possible  redress, 
constitute  a  record  that  is  appalling. 

Thus  was  the  Filipino  kept  in  ignorance  until 
two  centuries  had  passed.  Then,  with  the 
opening  of  the  Philippine  ports  to  residence  of 
foreigners  and  the  Open  Door  for  world  com- 
merce, the  ideas  that  sprang  into  the  world  with 
the  French  Revolution  and  that  in  America 
began  to  reach  through  the  Islands  ;  and  in  1863, 
in  the  hope  of  averting  by  a  single  considerate 
law  the  injustice  of  three  hundred  years,  Spain 
passed  an  act  providing  for  general  education 
in  the  Islands  upon  a  comprehensive,  modern 
plane.  Primary  instruction  was  to  be  obliga- 
tory and  gratuitous,  and  no  fault  could  reason- 
ably be  found  with  the  law  as  it  read.  But 
when  it  came  to  the  test  of  application,  educa- 
tion was  left  just  where  it  was  before,  in  the 
hands  of  the  friars,  who,  for  the  reasons  already 
stated,  were  opposed  to  anything  that  would 
give  real  knowledge  to  the  masses  of  the  people. 
The  superintendence  of  the  school  was  placed 
in  the  hands  of  the  parish  priest.  Under  the 
law,  Spanish  had  to  be  taught.  Taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  provision  by  which  he  controlled 
the  oversight  of  the  teachers,  the  priest  per- 
mitted that  tongue  to  be  taught  only  by  those 
who  did  not  understand  it,  or  who  did  not  under- 
stand the  dialect  of  the  pupils.     It  was  further 


1 8       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

arranged  that  the  total  salary  actually  received 
by  the  teachers  reached  the  average  of  two 
dollars  per  month,  without  board.  The  op- 
portunity which  this  beggarly  salary  gave  to 
the  priest  to  Insure  the  fulfillment  of  his  direc- 
tions should  not  be  lost  sight  of;  and  we  may  be 
certain  that  the  chances  thus  afforded  to  pre- 
vent the  teaching  of  anything  that  would  lift 
the  natives  out  of  their  complete  Ignorance  of 
the  outside  world  and  Its  Institutions  were 
utilized  to  their  fullest  extent.  The  Imagina- 
tion can  hardly  compass  the  devices  which 
these  shrewd  priests  evolved  to  continue  their 
control;  and  there  were  often  no  attempts  at 
sanitation  about  the  schoolhouses,  although 
the  conditions  that  obtained  were  a  terrible 
menace  to  the  health  of  the  pupils.^ 

In  approaching  a  study  of  the  helpless  people 
who  were  subjected  to  this  pitiless  misrule,  each 
reader  should  understand  that  as  Manila  has 
been  the  only  world-famous  port  in  the  Islands, 

^  "  A  decree  of  the  general  government,  issued  October  6,  1885, 
provided  for  a  competition  to  be  followed  by  prizes  for  the  best 
grammars  written  in  Visayan,  Cebuano,  Ilocano,  Bicol,  Pan- 
gasinan,  and  Pampango,  there  being  one  already  in  Tagalog. 
Naturally  these  grammars,  which  were  written  in  different  dia- 
lects and  taught  in  the  public  schools,  made  it  more  difficult  (and 
that  was  the  object)  for  the  Spanish  language  to  become  general. 
Matters  reached  such  a  stage  that  teachers  were  punished  and 
threatened  with  deportation,  and  some  were  actually  deported, 
for  teaching  Spanish."  T.  G.  del  Rosario,  Census  P.  I.,  vol.  III^ 
PP-  594,  S9S- 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  19 

always  their  business  center,  the  only  port  of 
calling  of  all  shipping  of  magnitude,  the  seat 
of  government,  the  only  large  city,  that  point 
came  to  signify  the  Philippines  and  their  inhab- 
itants, the  Filipinos.  A  greater  error  or  one 
leading  to  more  misconception  can  hardly  be 
imagined.  If  the  Filipinos  in  1898  had  been 
the  bright-looking  brown  men  in  white  duck 
one  saw  about  Manila,  our  problem  would  have 
been  relatively  simple,  as  many  of  them,  through 
constant  association  with  Europeans,  the  con- 
sequent infusion  of  foreign  blood,  and  consider- 
able education,  were  able  to  manage  large  affairs, 
and  had  developed  into  men  who  were  the 
equals  of  almost  any  others  in  a  similar  situa- 
tion. But  unfortunately  these  were  not  the 
Filipinos  at  all ;  they  were  almost  invariably  the 
best  of  the  Tagalogs,  but  one  of  the  eight  so- 
called  Christian  tribes,  whose  aggregate  numbers 
amounted  to  6,987,686.  Of  these,  the  Tagalogs 
had  but  1,460,695,  about  twenty  per  cent  of  all 
the  natives  termed  Christians ;  while  there  were 
absolutely  wild  men  and  Mohammedan  Moros 
to  the  number  of  647,740  according  to  the  best 
estimate,  but  who  never  could  be  counted  with 
exactitude,  making  the  total  population  of  the 
Archipelago  at  least  7,635,426,  and  probably 
eight  million,^  as  we  have  since  learned. 

^  These  figures  just  given  are  based  upon  the  census  of  1903 ; 
because  it  was  the  first  reliable  one  ever  taken  in  the  Islands; 


20       THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

The  problem  in  the  Philippines,  in  1898,  then, 
was  not  the  problem  of  the  Tagalogs,  substan- 
tially all  of  whom  were  within  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  miles  of  Manila,  and  the  large  ma- 
jority right  in  the  city  or  at  its  very  doors ; 
it  was  the  problem  of  five  times  as  many  alto- 
gether different  people  with  different  tongues, 
the  large  majority  of  them  far  from  the  influ- 
ences of  a  metropolitan  community,  and  more 
than  half  a_  million  of  them  hopeless  savages 
besides. 

There  are  only  eleven  islands  of  any  consid- 
erable magnitude :  Luzon,  on  the  north,  and, 
to  the  south  of  it  and  but  some  twenty  miles 
distant,  Mindoro,  Masbate,  and  Samar,  all 
side  by  side ;  then,  still  farther  southward  and 
similarly  arranged,  come  Panay,  Negros,  Cebu, 
Leyte,  Palauan,  and  Bojol,  the  latter  the  only 
one  more  than  twenty  miles  away  from  the 
first  group.  Last  of  all,  and  but  fifteen  miles 
from  Leyte,  is  Mindanao. 

Of  the  total  length  of  the  Archipelago,  north 
to  south,  Luzon  and  Mindanao  consume  fully 

for  the  same  reason,  the  statistics  of  population  and  literacy 
which  follow  use  the  same  authority.  Between  1898  and  1903, 
of  course,  the  population  had  not  appreciably  altered.  Literacy, 
however,  was  undoubtedly  more  general  at  the  end  of  this  period, 
after  four  years  of  American  schools,  than  at  its  beginning,  so 
that  the  natives  are  consequently  credited  as  having  in  1898  more 
literacy  than  in  fact  they  possessed,  which  is  not  so  important  as 
that  they  be  done  no  injustice. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  21 

four  fifths,  or  some  eight  hundred  miles ;  and 
in  area,  with  40,969  and  36,292  square  miles 
respectively,  each,  with  the  other  eliminated, 
is  larger  than  all  the  remainder  combined,  which 
have  but  29,562  square  miles. 

All  of  these  large  islands  are  mountainous, 
and  in  their  natural  condition  abound  with 
tropical  fauna  that  is  apt  for  the  guerrilla  war- 
fare in  which  primitive  people  excel. 

Of  the  remaining  3130  islands,  but  20  have 
more  than  a  hundred  square  miles,  729  are  less 
than  a  mile  square,  and  2046  have  less  than  one 
tenth  of  a  mile. 

Luzon  is  530  miles  long,  and  the  upper  half 
of  it,  on  the  average,  100  miles  wide.  A  little 
north  of  Manila,  the  island  suddenly  narrows 
to  forty-three  miles,  and  never  exceeds  that  at 
any  point  farther  to  the  south,  where  in  several 
places  it  is  not  more  than  a  fourth  of  that. 

Talking  in  a  large  way,  half  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Archipelago  lived  on  Luzon,  with  its 
population  of  3,745,406,  all  termed  Christians 
except  223,506  wild  men. 

The  million  and  a  half  Tagalogs  (round  num- 
bers will  now  be  employed  unless  the  figures 
are  plainly  to  the  contrary),  comprising  some 
five  twelfths  of  the  population  of  the  island, 
occupied  a  section  extending  one  hundred  miles 
to  the  north  from  Manila  and  forty  miles  to  the 
eastward,  in  the  very  heart  of  Luzon ;    to  the 


22       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

south  of  the  capital  they  filled  the  entire  Island 
for  another  one  hundred  miles,  reaching  to 
about  one  hundred  and  sixty  miles  from  its 
extreme  southern  point,  making  the  total  terri- 
tory of  the  tribe  thirteen  thousand  square  miles 
or  thereabouts  —  a  space  approximating  the 
state  of  Maryland  and  one  and  one  half  times 
as  large  as  Massachusetts. 

Eleven  hundred  thousand  or  more,  nearly 
three  fourths  of  all  the  Tagalogs,  lived  within 
seventy-five  miles  of  Manila,  and  of  this  number 
some  fifteen  per  cent  resided  in  the  city.  Of 
the  remaining  eighty-five  per  cent  more  than 
one  third,  or  three  hundred  and  eighty  thous- 
and, lived  in  twenty-three  other  cities  of  ten 
thousand  or  more. 

The  salient  characteristics  of  the  Tagalog, 
then,  could  be  mastered  in  Manila  or  its  im- 
mediate vicinity.  To  be  sure,  the  traveler,  if 
he  went  no  farther  away,  might  be  misled  by 
the  appearances  of  higher  cultivation  which 
the  natives  were  bound  to  exhibit  in  this  center 
of  education  and  refinement,  where  they  had 
come  in  closest  contact  with  civilizing  influences. 
But  the  picture  of  what  Manila  was  in  certain 
respects  in  1898  and  for  four  or  five  years  later 
is  typical  of  what  we  had  to  meet  everywhere. 

Practically  three  houses  in  every  five  in  Ma- 
nila were  of  bamboo,  with  a  thick  nipa  palm 
thatch,  which  was  ordinarily  the  home  of  ants 


The  Manila  of   1898.     Nipa  District 


The  Manila  of   1898.      Typical  Native  Shanties. 


•  c 


c  c 

c 


THE  PROBLEM   IN   1898  23 

and  other  Interesting  little  animals.  This  flimsy 
structure,  usually  of  one  room,  rested  upon  four 
posts  that  supported  it  under  each  corner  at  a 
height  of  from  two  to  six  or  even  more  feet  above 
the  ground.  If  the  space  thus  formed  was  not 
inclosed,  it  was  the  home  of  the  family  pigs, 
carabao,  pony,  and  hens,  when  there  were  any, 
which  was  the  rule.  Usually  these  denizens 
fed  upon  what  was  dropped  through  a  hole  in 
one  corner  of  the  only  floor  the  place  possessed ; 
but  even  with  these  scavengers  the  surrounding 
atmosphere  was  sometimes  not  at  all  to  be  de- 
sired. Vivid  imagination  can  hardly  invoke 
worse  conditions  than  those  afforded  by  the 
actualities,  many  of  which  have  not  by  any 
means  been  indicated.  Hundreds  of  these 
structures,  with  all  the  animals  their  occupants 
could  buy,  were  crowded  as  closely  as  possible 
into  large  sections  of  Manila,  some  above  solid 
ground,  but  the  majority,  probably,  close  to 
water,  for  the  native  liked  to  employ  a  river  or 
a  canal  as  his  water  supply  for  all  purposes. 
He  and  his  carabao  and  his  pigs,  his  hens,  and 
his  family  bathed  and  often  drank  in  the  same 
stream.  The  few  dishes  and  pots  he  possessed, 
together  with  the  family  wardrobe,  his  dutiful 
wife  habitually  cleaned  in  this  common  water, 
and  as  it  saved  labor,  the  nearer  the  shack  was 
to  the  stream  the  better;  and  so  it  very  often 
was  placed  right  in  it.    There  was  usually  no 


24        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

furniture  in  the  dwelling  beyond  a  bench  or 
two  and  a  table,  all  rudely  fashioned  by  the 
proprietor. 

Upon  rising  in  the  morning,  each  member  of 
the  family,  except  the  baby  in  arms,  lighted 
a  cigarette  and  puffed  at  it  until  the  breakfast 
was  served  in  a  single  gourd,  which  was  placed 
on  the  floor.  Seated  about  it,  resting  the  body 
on  their  heels,  the  family  gorged  itself  in  turn, 
each  putting  a  hand  into  the  receptacle  and 
seizing  all  of  the  rice  it  would  contain.  Some 
six  or  seven  square  feet  of  strong  garlic,  gath- 
ered in  one  corner,  was  apt  to  fill  the  room  with 
its  pungent  odors  to  add  to  those  that  came 
from  beneath. 

The  repast  concluded,  the  mother  would 
wash  the  pot  and  the  single  wooden  spoon  in 
the  filthy  river  (I  have  seen  it  done  in  the  Pasig 
River,  in  Manila,  between  a  carabao  enjoying 
its  bath  and  a  group  of  women  washing  clothing), 
and  as  soon  as  she  returned,  she  would  daub  a 
betel  nut  with  lime  and  proceed  to  chew  upon 
it,  thus  blackening  her  teeth  irremediably,  and 
tingeing  the  saliva  a  deep  red,  as  there  was  fre- 
quent opportunity  to  observe.  Such  were  some 
of  the  details  of  the  daily  life  of  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  Tagalogs  in  Manila,  when  we  first 
came. 

There  was  little  use  by  them  of  anything  ap- 
proaching a  public  sewer.     Where  the  river  was 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  25 

not  deep  and  there  were  no  animals,  the  refuse 

of  the  family  floated  about  in  open  drains,  which 

formed  by  accident,  were  never  cleaned,  and 

.  ^ver  which  the  people  seemed  especially  to  de- 

^^ght  to  build  their  homes,  —  it  was  so  conven- 

\ient.     If  by  chance  there  was  a  well  about,  it  was 

almost  sure  to  derive  from  the  drain  much  of  its 

water  supply.     Scores  of  acres  in  Manila  were 

covered  with  just  such  buildings  as  have  been 

[described,  with  no  streets  among  them,  no  alley- 

^^ays,  just  a  huddled  mass  of  shacks  crowded 

^together  as  closely  as  possible,  seldom  more  than 

Va  yard  apart  and  usually  directly  attached  to 

^  each  other.     When  the  night  came,  the  family 

^lay  on  nipa    rugs  one  sixty-second  of   an  inch 

thick,  placed  on  the  floor,  which  was  made  of  a 

lattice  of    split  bamboo    an  inch  wide,   set  a 

quarter  of  an  inch  apart,  so  as  to  admit  full  play 

of  air  from  beneath.     The  ponies,  the  pigs,  the 

carabao,    and   the   hens,   therefore,   were   in   a 

position  to  provide  all  sorts  of  entertainment 

for  more  than  one  sense,  to  the  family  above, 

and  this  they  seldom  failed  to  do. 

There  were  no  further  preparations  for  bed 
than  those  described,  the  little  clothing  that 
was  worn  remaining  on  the  body  until  it  came 
time  to  clean  it  in  the  river. 

For  an  oflicial  statement  of  some  of  the 
sanitary  conditions  referred  to,  so  that  the 
reader  may  not  fear  that  there  has  been  ex- 


26        THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

aggeration,  the  following  excerpts  are  made 
from  the  1902  report  of  Major  L.  M.  Maus, 
deputy  surgeon-general,  U.  S.  A.,  who  was  de- 
tailed as  the  first  Commissioner  of  Public 
Health  of  the  Philippines.^  He  then  estimated 
that  there  were  ten  thousand  nipa  houses  in 
Manila.  As  matter  of  fact,  there  were  fifteen 
thousand,  or  about  three  fifths  of  all  the  dwell- 
ings in  the  city,  as  is  still  the  case. 

*'The  surface,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "occupied 
by  the  nipa  houses  (in  Manila)  is,  as  a  rule, 
unprovided  with  proper  drainage,  as  a  result 
of  which  during  heavy  rains  the  accumulation 
of  filth  and  garbage  is  floated  out  into  the 
streets  and  deposited  over  the  district.  .  .  . 
From  reports  received  of  2,000  nipa  houses 
recently  inspected,  only  11  were  provided  with 
cans  for  the  collection  of  garbage,  and  but  5 
were  provided  with  water-closet  arrangements. 
As  each  of  these  so-called  dwellings  afi'ords 
shelter  for  from  8  to  12  persons,  it  is  impossible 
that  sanitary  regulations  can  be  successfully 
enforced  at  present.  .  .  .  Manila  derived  its 
water  supply  from  four  different  sources.  .  .  . 
The  main  supply  of  the  city  is  obtained  from 
the  Mariquina  River.  .  .  .  Before  reaching 
the  pumping  station  .  .  .  the  river  flows 
through  a  thickly  populated  valley  containing 
the  towns  of  San  Mateo,  Montalban,  and  Mari- 

1  Annual  Report  War  Department,  1902,  vol.  X,  pp.  328-330. 


The  Manila  of  1898.     Common  Scene  in 
Native  Quarter. 


The  Manila  of  1898.      Nipa  Houses  of 
Poorer   Class. 


N 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  27 

quina,  the  combined  population  of  which  is 
estimated  at  i3,c«DO.  The  people  living  along 
the  stream  above  the  pumping  station  use  the 
river  water  freely  for  domestic  purposes.  They 
not  only  bathe  in  the  river  themselves,  but 
allow  their  domestic  animals  to  do  so.  Dur- 
ing the  rainy  season  the  filth  along  the  entire 
valley  (a  stretch  of  more  than  a  score  of  miles, 
thickly  populated),  and  from  these  towns  es- 
pecially, is  washed  into  the  river.  .  .  .  Dr. 
Calvert,  of  the  army,  made  a  number  of  bac- 
teriological examinations  of  water  taken  from 
the  river  above  and  below  Mariquina  and  other 
towns  in  the  valley,  and  found  as  many  as 
613,705  bacteria  to  the  cubic  centimeter  when 
the  water  was  filled  with  people  bathing,  and 
with  animals,  while  during  a  quiescent  state 
he  found  from  6,000  to  15,000  colonies  to  the 
cubic  centimeter.  This  is  in  striking  contrast 
to  the  water  supply  of  Boston,  which  contains 
about  73  bacteria  to  the  cubic  centimeter,  and 
the  Croton  water  supply  of  New  York,  with 
from  50  to  75.  .  .  .  A  few  (of  the  wells  of  the 
city)  are  kept  clean,  but  the  majority  are  dirty, 
and  the  water  is  usually  polluted.  These  wells 
are  generally  located  in  the  back  yards,  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  stable  and  cesspool." 

Of  the  disposal  of  night  soil,  Major  Maus, 
upon  the  page    last  referred  to  (330),  says: 

"Some  of  the  best  houses  in  Manila  were 


28        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

provided  with  a  seat  in  the  second  story,  on 
the  outside  of  the  house,  and  the  deposit  al- 
lowed to  drop  in  the  yard  below,  where  it  was 
finally  scraped  up  and  carried  away.  The 
depositos  or  stone  vaults  so  commonly  found 
in  Manila,  as  well  as  in  all  Spanish  cities,  are 
relics  of  the  middle  and  barbarous  ages,  and  in 
many  of  them  collections  of  fecal  matter,  undis- 
turbed for  years,  were  found  to  exist  at  the 
time  of  the  American  occupation.  .  .  .  The 
stone  walls  of  these  vaults  are  permeated  with 
fecal  matter,  and  as  a  result  a  permanent  odor 
of  night  soil  can  be  detected  in  many  of  the 
finest  residences  of  the  city." 

The  superintendent  of  one  of  the  chief 
branches  of  health  work  in  Manila,  writing 
at  the  same  time,  says  ^  that  among  the  best 
classes  of  houses  in  the  city,  after  the  stone 
vaults  above  described,  the  "most  common 
style  of  closet  is  one  built  directly  over  the 
waterways  and  bay  of  Manila.  ...  In  nearly 
every  case  of  closets  situated  over  or  empty- 
ing into  waterways,  I  find  that  the  point 
of  emptying  is  above  low-water  mark,  and 
when  the  tide  is  out,  the  deposits  are  left 
high  and  dry,  throwing  off  an  unbearable 
odor,  and  being  exposed  to  the  action  of  flies 
and  other  insects  for  from  eight  to  twelve 
hours  daily.  There  is  not  sufficient  current, 
*  Annual  Report  War  Department,  1902,  vol.  X,  p.  371. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  29 

in  fact,  in  the  esteros  of  the  city  (canals,  thirty- 
one  miles  of  which  are  in  city  limits)  to  carry 
this  deposit  away  bodily,  but  it  is  gradually 
dissolved  and  mingles  with  the  water  itself, 
making  a  putrid,  disease-breeding,  open  sewer 
of  every  waterway  in  the  city.  ...  In  the 
nipa  districts  (containing  three  fifths  of  all 
the  residences  in  the  city)  there  are  but  a  few 
closets  of  any  description,  the  nearest  approach 
to  the  same  being  a  tiny  bamboo  house  built 
up  about  six  feet  from  the  ground,  the  excre- 
ment being  deposited  on  the  top  of  the  ground 
itself,  and  the  collectors  of  same  being  the  hogs 
and  poultry  of  the  district.  ...  In  the  out- 
lying districts  of  the  city,  there  is  no  attempt 
whatever  made  towards  closets  of  any  de- 
scription, but  the  people  use  the  open  lots  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  houses  for  all  purposes  of 
that  character." 

In  Manila,  where  have  always  been  the  best 
schools  in  the  Archipelago,  only  forty-nine  per 
cent  of  all  the  Tagalogs  ten  years  of  age  or  over 
could  read  and  write  any  language.  And  it  is 
necessary  to  know  that  when  the  Census  listed 
these  forty-nine  per  cent  as  literate,  the  most 
of  them  could  only  read  and  write  something 
in  their  native  tongue.^ 

*  The  fact  must  be  impressed  that  literacy  among  the  people 
of  the  Philippines  meant  the  ability  to  read  and  write  in  any 
language  —  English,  Spanish,  or  a  Malay  tongue.    Since  in  all 


30        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

The  full  meaning  of  this  may  be  learned  from 
the  investigations  of  competent  scholars,  nota- 
ble among  whom  are  Tavera,  Retana,  and 
Medina,  who  have  prepared  exhaustive  cata- 
logues of  Philippine  literature.  I  have  ex- 
amined each  of  the  2850  titles  appearing  in 
Tavera's  "  Biblioteca  Filipina."  Among  them  I 
have  found  161  volumes  (only  one  edition 
counted  in  any  of  my  calculations)  published 
prior  to  1898  in  the  Tagalog  tongue.  Of  this 
number  ninety-one,  or  more  than  half,  were 
purely  religious  in  character,  such  as  cate- 
chisms, devotional  books,  novenas,  and  lives 
and  deeds  of  the  various  Catholic  saints  or 
other   religious   personages. 

Of  the  remaining  seventy  works,  fifty  were 
in  verse.  Of  these  last  Tavera  terms  one  of 
no  importance,  and  one  as  the  most  important 
poem  yet  produced  by  a  Tagalog;  the  rest, 
forty-eight  in  number,  are  doggerel  relations 
of  some  of  the  local  tales,  fables,  and  traditions. 

This  leaves  but  twenty  works  to  which  resort 
could  be  had  for  books  of  true  educational 
value ;  and  these,  so  far  as  I  have  determined, 
were  composed  of  the  following  :  two  grammars, 
each  Tagalog-Spanish  —  one  of  the  date  of  1610 

probability  less  than  ten  per  cent  of  the  people  of  the  Islands 
could  speak  Spanish  or  English,  the  fact  is  unquestionable  that 
the  majority  of  the  people  reported  as  literate  could  read  and 
write  only  the  native  tongues.    Census  P._I.,  vol.  II,  p.  78. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  31 

and  the  other  of  1884  —  and  one  manual  of 
conversation  in  the  two  tongues.  As  opposed 
to  these  were  eleven  books  and  probably  more 
which  would  provide  means  by  which  Spaniards 
could  acquire  Tagalog,  but  being  in  Spanish  and 
written  for  the  purpose  indicated,  they  were  of 
little  practical  value  to  a  Tagalog  desiring  to 
learn  Spanish. 

This  leaves  but  seventeen  works  unaccounted 
for.  These  comprehend  a  book  upon  cock 
fighting,  rules  and  methods  of  training  the  birds, 
a  single  arithmetic,  one  novel  published  in  1885 
by  a  Spanish  monk,  which,  with  two  novels  by 
Rizal,  a  Tagalog  more  than  half  Chinese,  the 
famous  work  called  Noli  me  tangere,  and  its  con- 
tinuation, El  filibuster ismo^  are  the  only  works 
of  prose  fiction  in  the  dialect  that  Tavera  ap- 
pears ever  to  have  found  bound.  There  was  one 
volume  on  good  manners,  one  drama,  and  two 
comedies,  neither  of  literary  value.  There  was 
one  life  of  Rizal,  the  martyr,  one  book  by  a  Span- 
ish missionary  describing  his  impressions  of  the 
tribe,  published  in  1610,  four  volumes  of  rules  for 
planting  various  agricultural  products,  and  a 
humorous  letter  twenty-three  pages  in  length  by 
Rizal,  and  a  study  of  ten  pages  relating  to  Tagalog 
orthography,  by  the  same  author — and  no  more !  ^ 

1 "  There  is  no  literature  in  dialect ;  the  few  odd  cc%iposItions  in 
Tagalog  still  extant  are  wanting  in  the  first  principles  of  literary- 
style,"    John  Foreman,  "The  Philippine  Islands,"  p.  193.    {Cont.) 


32        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

Such  appears  to  have  been,  substantially  at 
least,  if  not  exactly,  the  extent  and  nature  of 
Tagalog  literature  as  listed  by  as  great  a  scholar 
as  the  Filipinos  have  produced.^ 

There  were  apparently  but  five  public  libra- 
ries among  the  Tagalogs,  and  according  to 
the  best  authority  all  together  possessed  a 
total  of  five  books  in  that  tongue.  There  were 
one  hundred  and  seventy  other  volumes,  of 
which  five  were  in  German  and  the  balance  in 
Spanish.  This  afforded  one  volume  in  Tagalog 
dialect  to  every  three  hundred  thousand  Taga- 

(Cont.)  "No  real  text-books  existed  in  any  of  the  Philippine 
dialects ;  only  catechisms,  forms  of  prayer,  fairy  tales,  almanacs, 
alleged  grammars  of  the  dialects  prepared  by  early  friars,  who 
were  plainly  not  philologians,  were  the  things  constituting  the  so- 
called  Tagalog  literature,  Bisayan  literature,  etc.  .  .  .  There  is, 
in  short,  no  literature  worthy  being  described  by  that  term  in  any 
of  the  dialects."  Le  Roy,  "Philippine  Life  in  Town  and  Coun- 
try," pp.  216,  217. 

^  An  examination  of  Retana's  catalogue  seems  to  indicate  sub- 
stantial accord  with  my  examination  of  Tavera's  work.  Edward 
Gaylord  Bourne,  of  Yale  University,  a  scholar  of  national  reputa- 
tion, says  of  his  study  of  Retana's  list : 

"...  We  have  the  singular  result  that  the  Islands  contained 
relatively  more  people  who  could  read  and  less  reading  matter 
of  any  but  purely  religious  interest,  than  any  other  community 
in  the  world.  .  .  .  The  first  example  of  secular  prose  fiction  I 
have  noted  in  his  (Retana's)  lists  is  Friar  Bustamente's  (1885) 
pastoral  novel  depicting  the  quiet  charms  of  country  life.  .  .  . 
His  collection  did  not  contain,  so  far  as  I  noticed,  a  single  secular 
historical  narrative  in  Tagal  or  anything  in  natural  science." 
Blair  and  Robertson,  "The  Philippine  Islands,"  vol.  I,  Historical 
Introduction,  pp.  80  and  82.     ¥.  C. 


THE  PROBLEM   IN   1898  33 

logs,  and  one  volume  of  any  sort  to  every  eight 
thousand  of  them. 

It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that  but  five  hundred 
thirty-five  thousand  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Archipelago  ten  years  or  more  of  age  could  read 
and  write  Spanish,  which  number  equals  seven 
per  cent  of  the  total  population  as  found  by  the 
Census.^ 

In  view  of  all  the  foregoing,  it  will  probably 
be  generous  to  say  of  the  Tagalogs  in  Manila 
that  not  more  than  twenty-five  per  cent  of 
those  ten  and  more  years  of  age  could  read  and 
write  Spanish,  the  only  tongue  in  which  there 
was  anything  of  consequence  to  read ;  and  as 
for  the  reading  matter  actually  open  to  this 
small  proportion,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the 
Manila  newspapers,  then  seven  in  number  —  all 
in  Spanish  —  and  all  bound  volumes  permitted 
to  be  printed  or  imported  employing  that 
tongue,  were  so  censored  as  efi'ectually  to  con- 
ceal or  pervert  all  knowledge  not  welcomed  by 
the  political  and  the  ecclesiastical  authorities, 
—  and  that  excluded  about  everything  that 
was  most  worth  while. 

The  statement  made  in  the  Census  taken  by 
us  in  1903  in  respect  to  the  Spanish  tongue  in 
the  Islands  is  to  the  point : 

"How  serious  was  this  neglect  (of  the  teach- 

*  "Special  Report  on  the  Philippines,"  W.  H.  Taft,  Secretary 
of  War  (1908),  at  p.  27, 


34        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

ing  of  Spanish  to  the  natives)  can  be  realized 
only  when  we  consider  that  Spanish  was  the 
language  of  the  official  class  and  the  sole  one 
having  an  educational  literature  within  the 
reach  of  the  people.  Therefore,  the  tribes 
speaking  the  different  dialects  had  practically 
no  literature  and  no  educational  facilities.  In 
short,  literacy  in  any  of  the  dialects  is  not 
incompatible  with  total  ignorance  on  all  sub- 
jects derived  from  books.  Hence,  as  shown  by 
the  Census,  withholding  instruction  in  Spanish 
from  the  Filipinos  kept  the  great  mass  of  them 
in  ignorance,  as  the  number  who  had  received 
secondary  instruction^  was  but  1.6  per  cent 
of  the  civilized  population,  and  of  the  female 
population  but  seven  tenths  of  one  per  cent 
had  received  a  secondary  education.  These 
were  able  to  read,  write,  and  speak  Spanish 
and  comprised  what  may  be  called  the  edu- 
cated class."  2 

Now  while  it  is  impossible  to  say  just  how 
many  of  the  Manila  Tagalogs  were  literate 
in  Spanish,  it  is  known  that  only  nine  per  cent 
of  all  the  inhabitants  of  that  city,  including 
twenty-one  thousand  Chinese,  forty-three  hun- 


*  Secondary  Instruction,  in  the  Census,  is  any  which  succeeds 
the  earliest  nine  years  of  school  work.  The  Census  designates 
this  later  study  as  Superior  Education,  and  the  term  is  adopted 
and  employed  hereinafter  with  that  meaning. 

2  Census  P.  I.,  vol.  I,  p.  41, 


Manila.     Milk  Vendors,  Old  Style. 


cc 


/. 


THE  PROBLEM    IN   1898  35 

dred  Americans,  and  two  thousand  Spaniards, 
of  ten  or  more  years  of  age,  had  attended  school 
for  more  than  nine  years. ^ 

To  them  scant  attention  need  be  directed. 
They  were  the  cultured  people  of  the  city,  who, 
with  others  of  their  kind  elsewhere,  were  always 
referred  to  by  themselves  and  other  natives  as  the 
gente  illustrada  (pronounced  hontay  illustrardar). 

They  did  not  greatly  concern  the  Philippine 
problem  except  as  they  demonstrated  what 
they  became  at  the  end  of  three  centuries  under 
Spanish  oppression  and  with  the  help  of  Spanish 
and  Chinese  and  every  other  kind  of  blood  that 
ever  came  to  the  port  of  Manila.  These  nine 
per  cent  were  the  equal  of  the  Spaniard  in  prac- 
tically everything.  Indeed,  many  of  them  were 
.more  Spaniard  than  Tagalog.  These  nine  per 
cent  could  then  take  care  of  themselves.  Six- 
teen thousand  strong,  they  thought  they  could 
take  good  care  of  the  other  ninety-one  per  cent 
in  Manila,  and,  if  assisted  by  the  similar  class 
in  other  localities,  they  were  quite  as  certain 
that  they  were  capable  of  controlling  the  rest 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philippines,  a  balance 
numbering  some  seven  million. 

The  moment  the  traveler  went  out  of  Manila, 
the  Tagalogs  became  less  cultivated  in  appear- 
ance. They  exhibited  more  of  their  brown 
bodies  and  their  literacy  decreased,  except  in 

^  Census  P.  I.,  vol.  II,  p.  83. 


36        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

the  adjoining  province  of  Cavite,  which  con- 
tained a  population  similar  to  that  in  the  capital 
city.  In  the  exception  named,  the  literacy 
was  ten  per  cent  better  than  in  Manila,  but  the 
percentage  of  those  more  than  ten  years  of  age 
with  Superior  Education  was  nine  times  less ; 
that  is,  in  Manila  that  percentage  was  nine, 
while  in  Cavite  it  was  but  one  and  one  tenth ; 
and  considering  the  tribe  altogether,  with  Ma- 
nila omitted,  it  was  one  and  four  sevenths. 
Taking  the  tribe  as  a  whole,  the  figure  was  two 
and  five  tenths.^  That  is,  of  every  hundred 
Tagalogs  to  be  met  with  in  1898  who  were  ten 
or  more  years  of  age,  two  and  five  tenths  only 
had  a  better  education  than  that  possessed  by 
our  fourteen-year-old  boys  and  girls  in  the 
United   States. 

Except  for  the  some  ten  per  cent,  which  is 
surely  a  very  generous  allowance,  who  composed 
the  well-to-do,  cultivated,  educated,  refined 
class  —  the  gente  illustrada,  as  we  shall  here- 
after designate  them  —  the  Tagalogs,  as  mem- 
bers of  the  tribe,  must  be  considered  as  having 
the  following  characteristics  : 

*  Census  P.  I,,  vol.  II,  p.  83.  This  figure  is  arrived  at  by  aver- 
aging the  percentage  of  those  with  Superior  Education  in  the 
provinces  occupied  by  the  Tagalogs :  i.e.  Bulacan,  Nueva 
Ecija,  Rizal,  Manila  City,  Cavite,  La  Laguna,  Batangas,  and 
Tayabas.  This  omits  Marinduque  Island,  which  would  make  the 
percentage  still  lower.  Also,  for  exact  numbers,  vide  Census, 
vol.  II,  p.  753. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  37 

They  had  never  read  a  book  of  broad  educa- 
tional value,  or  a  newspaper.  They  lived  in 
substantially  the  unsanitary  surroundings  and 
manner  which  have  been  described  with  espe- 
cial reference  to  Manila,  except  that  in  the 
country  or  smaller  towns  the  nipa  shacks  were 
not  so  crowded  together,  but  rested  in  a  vege- 
table plot  or  amongst  the  banana  palms. 

It  was  the  custom  for  a  father  or  mother  to 
'.  sell  their  daughters  as  mistresses.  If  and 
when  a  girl  ceased  to  be  attractive  to  a  white 
man,  who  paid  her  by  the  month,  and  she  re- 
turned to  her  home,  she  was  more  eagerly 
sought  for  in  marriage  than  before,  because 
the  natives  regarded  her  success  with  the  alien 
as  indisputable  evidence  of  exceptional  charms. 

They  commonly  believed  in  all  the  wild 
spirits  that  have  from  time  immemorial  been 
credited  by  the  uneducated  men  of  all  lands. 
Of  Nono,  the  spirit  of  the  aged,  permission 
was  requested  to  enter  a  strange  forest,  other- 
wise the  traveler  would  be  destroyed  before 
he  could  turn  homeward.  If  a  person  became 
ill  with  no  apparent  cause,  it  was  due  to  Nono's 
displeasure.  Tigbalan  was  an  evil  spirit,  which 
resided  now  in  one  animal,  now  in  another, 
one  day  in  a  pig,  the  next  in  the  stray  cara- 
bao  which  halted  before  the  shack  the  day  a 
baby  died  there.  Asuan  was  prone  to  wandering 
about  in  the  shape  of  a  pig,  which  killed  the 


38        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

child  of  the  mother  who  had  just  completed 

er  labor.     Patianac  was   a   strange    phantom 

N^never  seen,  but  known   to  be   the    soul   of  an 

ttnbaptized  child  who  died  and  ever  after  must 


wander  about  the  great  forests,  chirping  like  a 
^  bird.     Lumalabas    was    the    soul    of   the    dead 
V    f  •  J  appearing    in    horrible    forms    that    frequently 
^^^^!.    vf    drove  people  insane ;    and  sight  of  it,  of  course, 
\>      was  the  cause  of   all  insanity.     Mangcuculan 
could  cause  the  death  of  an  enemy,  and  nobody 
would  approach  a  man  or  woman  said  to  con- 
tain him.     Iqui  could  fly  only  at  night,  leaving 
half  of  his  body,  from  the  waist  to  the  feet,  in 
his  home.     This  terrible  demon  sat  on  the  roof 
of  the  homes  of  the  sick  and   ran  his  tongue, 
that  was  no  larger  than  a  fine  thread,  into  the 
victim's  bowels,  and  ate  the  liver. 

The  Tagalog  wore  charms  on  the  chest  and  on 
the  back  and  believed  that  after  he  said  the 
rosary  he  could  not  be  harmed.  While  at- 
tending the  Catholic  church,  he  had  no  pro- 
found belief  in  it.  If  there  had  been  any  other 
church  in  town  with  better  music  and  more 
mysticism,  he  would  surely  have  deserted  the 
friars  for  the  other.  He  considered  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with  any  government  except 
to  feel  its  oppression.  That  he  could  have  any 
responsibility  in  seeing  law  and  order  triumphant 
would  never  have  occurred  to  him.  The 
Tagalogs  were  altogether  improvident.     They 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  39 

worked  only  long  enough  to  be  sure  of  the 
next  meal.  They  would  sit  for  hours  at  a 
time  and  gaze  at  nothing.  They  were  fatalists 
by  nature,  which  made  them  fanatics  in  battle, 
as  all  Malays.  When  anything  happened,  no 
matter  how  serious  it  might  be,  the  Tagalog 
never  bewailed,  but  just  said  it  was  the  will  of 
fate  and  went  about  his  affairs  as  if  nothing 
at  all  had  occurred.  When  angry,  he  was 
prone  to  lose  utterly  his  self-control  and  destroy 
everything  that  was  in  his  reach,  animate  or 
inanimate.  Incomprehensible  inconsistencies 
were  to  be  found  in  almost  every  native.  He 
was  extremely  affectionate  to  his  family  in 
certain  respects,  yet  when  his  house  was  afire, 
he  paused  only  to  save  his  fighting  cock,  leaving 
his  household  to  look  out  for  its  own  safety. 
He  would  steal  from  his  best  friend ;  he  was 
a  most  cruel  tyrant  when  given  power  over  his 
own  and  other  peoples,  and  was  wantonly  cruel 
to  animals.  He  was  stoical  and  silent,  yet 
could  not  retain  a  secret.  Extraneous  agencies, 
the  looks  of  a  thing,  were  the  most  powerful 
influences  in  his  life,  rather  than  any  innate 
desire  or  principle.  He  was  utterly  impractical, 
with  no  idea  of  the  power  of  combination  or  of 
concerted  effort.  He  had  no  more  of  the  logi- 
cal faculty  than  was  required  to  entitle  him  to  be 
classed  as  a  rational  being.  It  was  altogether 
beyond  his  capacity  to  determine  by  his  own 


40        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

processes  of  mind  whether  a  proposal  were 
right  or  wrong.  It  was  only  one  or  the  other, 
because  somebody  whom  he  considered  to  be  of 
a  superior  class  told  him  so. 

Tagalogs  had  done  no  more  in  the  arts  than 
had  the  American  Indians.  They  had  a  marked 
faculty  for  the  memorizing  of  music,  but  no 
capacity  at  all  for  the  creation  of  original 
compositions.  As  a  rule  they  played  only  by 
ear.  Endowed  with  prodigious  memory,  they 
could  often  recite  word  for  word  the  contents 
of  an  entire  volume  relating  to  the  lives  of  the 
Saints,  and  yet  be  totally  unable  to  answer 
a  question  in  a  manner  that  showed  that 
they  comprehended  one  of  the  ideas  that 
they  had  just  repeated.  They  did  not  know 
what  it  was  to  pity ;  and  if  treated  with  a  vol- 
untary concession  of  justice  or  generosity,  they 
regarded  the  act  only  as  an  indication  of  weak- 
ness, and  usually  despised  the  doer  for  that 
reason. 

They  had  great  reverence  for  the  aged. 
Their  hospitality  was  unbounded,  so  prodigal, 
in  fact,  that  natives  visiting  a  town  had  no 
need  of  hotels,  but  relied  upon  friends  or  rela- 
tives who  put  them  up  indefinitely,  supplying 
the  guests  with  the  best  at  hand.  There  was 
no  counterpart  among  the  young  of  the  American 
or  Continental  hoodlum,  and  universally  the 
children    were    exceedingly    well-behaved    and 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  41 

respectful.  Among  their  own  people,  the  Taga- 
logs  were  genial  and  sociable.  They  were 
habitually  light-hearted,  and  remarkably  pa- 
tient under  hard  masters.  The  prevailing  vice 
was  gamJng,  and  with  the  utmost  nonchalance 
they  would  risk  everything  they  possessed 
upon  the  turn  of  a  single  card  or  the  outcome  of 
some  cockfight.  To  a  fallen  foe  they  were 
cruel,  and  mutilation  of  a  foreign  enemy  living 
or  dead  was  the  prevailing  rule.  As  for  the 
truth,  they  seemed  to  have  almost  no  sense 
that  would  indicate  it  to  them.  If  found  at 
fault,  even  in  a  most  trivial  matter,  they  would 
almost  never  confess,  but  at  once  begin  to  weave 
the  most  unconscionable  fabrications  to  hide 
their  delinquency;  and  when  pushed  by  ques- 
tions that  tended  to  weaken  their  explanations, 
they  threw  all  caution  to  the  winds  and  told 
falsehood  after  falsehood  until  the  hearer  was 
positively  bewildered.  Indeed,  they  would  com- 
monly lie  for  no  reason  whatever,  unless  be- 
cause they  admired  their  faculty  to  deceive 
or  mislead ;  and  when  detected  in  deliberate 
prevarication,  they  felt  no  moral  guilt;  their 
only  mental  attitude  then  was  one  of  chagrin 
that  they  had  not  proven  better  liars,  and  if 
punished  for  lying  alone  they  simply  could 
not  understand  any  reason  for  their  sufiFering. 
No  child  was  taught  the  principle  that  truth 
was  valuable,  or  ever  to  be  told  for  its  own  sake ; 


42        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  only  rule  was  to  tell  what  the  hearer  wanted 
most  to  hear.^ 

When  talked  with,  they  seldom  did  any  rea- 
soning. They  asserted  that  they  did  a  certain 
thing,  but  could  not  tell  why  they  did  it;  and 
it  was  plain  that  they  had  never  considered  that 
question.  Everything  was  accepted  uncom- 
plainingly, with  never  a  thought  that  it  could 
be  averted,  improved,  or  mitigated.  A  native 
Tagalog  seldom  employed  "Why  .^" — about  the 
first  and  most  incessant  word  with  the  young- 
est American  children ;  and  in  originality,  in 
resourcefulness,  in  independence,  in  progressive- 
ness,  in  shrewdness,  in  the  power  to  invent,  the 
desire  to  hunt  causes  and  effects,  the  power  of 
deduction,  the  mind  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  boy  of 
five  is  immeasurably  more  advanced  than  was 
the  brain  of  the  average  Tagalog  man  of  ma- 
ture age.  Speaking  of  the  latter  as  a  class,  he 
had  none  of  these  faculties  in  action. 

With  a  forked  stick  or  root  for  a  plow,  the 
Tagalog  would  wade  about  up  to  his  knees  in  his 
rice  paddy  by  the  hour,  perfectly  contented. 
When  the  harvest  came,  the  women  would  go 
down  into  the  same  mud  and  with  rude  sickles 
cut  the  crop  and  thresh  it  with  their  bare  feet. 

A  glance  about  one  of  the  small   steamers 

*  See  Census  P.  I.,  vol.  I,  pp.  499  et  seq.,  for  various  high  au- 
thorities upon  most  of  my  statements  of  Tagalog  characteris- 
tics.    F.  C. 


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THE   PROBLEM   IN   1898  43 

that  plied  around  Manila  would  have  shown  to 
the  quick  intelligence  the  degree  of  civilization 
which  the  bulk  of  the  Tagalogs  had  attained. 
The  following  account  which  I  wrote  in  the 
early  days  seems  still  to  tell  the  tale  with  care- 
ful accuracy.^ 

"Many,  in  fact  the  majority,  of  passengers, 
sat  on  the  deck,  usually  on  their  heels,  in  the 
Oriental  fashion.  Most  of  the  women  were 
smoking.  Others  were  chewing  betel  nut  with 
irregular  teeth  that  were  already  reddened  or 
blackened  with  the  habit.  Poor  teeth  were 
almost  universal. 

"The  odors  aboard  would  have  sickened  a 
person  of  weak  stomach ;  and  had  I  not  fought 
the  tendency  as  hard  as  I  could,  I  should  surely 
have  succumbed.  When  the  boat  had  started, 
I  pushed  as  far  forward  as  possible  and  thus 
obtained  some  relief.  There  was  an  incessant 
jabber.  The  females  dressed  about  alike. 
Within  six  feet  of  me  stood  a  woman  of  about 
the  average  size,  five  feet  tall,  weighing  perhaps 
one  hundred  pounds.  She  wore  silver  ear- 
rings of  rude  manufacture.  A  cigarette  hung 
to  her  under  lip.  She  wore  a  red  skirt  with 
narrow  w^hite  stripes  every  half  inch  or  so. 
Her  bare  feet  were  in  wooden-bottomed  sandals. 
At  times  her  foot  would  withdraw  until  only 
the  tips  of  the  toes  would  be  sheltered.  Often 
she  would  stand  on  the  left  foot  with  the  right 
resting  against  the  left  calf.     Wide  flaring  gauze 

^  Frederick  Chamberlin,  "Around  the  World  in  Ninety  Days," 
pp.  133-137.     (Boston,  C.  M.  Clark  Pub.  Co.) 


44        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

fluffed  up  about  the  shoulders.  The  neck  was 
bared  to  the  tops  of  the  breasts,  but  never  so 
low  as  to  show  even  the  beginning  of  their 
curves.  The  arms  were  naked  except  for  the 
gauze,  which  was  so  loose  that  the  arm  could 
be  plainly  seen  for  its  whole  length.  The  pro- 
file closely  approached  that  of  a  chimpanzee. 
The  head  was  flat,  the  nose  snubby,  the  jaws 
protrusive,  the  chin  retrograding.  As  she 
looked  over  into  the  water  her  lips  moved  con- 
tinuously as  if  she  were  singing  to  herself. 
One  small,  inexpensive  ring,  set  with  a  blue 
and  white  stone,  was  worn  on  the  third  finger 
of  her  left  hand.  She  also  had  suspended 
from  the  neck,  by  a  dirty  cord,  and  resting  on 
her  chest,  a  brass  charm  about  two  inches  by 
four  inches,  showing  in  bas-relief  a  devil  dis- 
patching an  evil  spirit,  demonstrating  that 
no  harm  could  come  to  the  possessor  of  the 
relic.  Probably  half  of  the  women  aboard 
were  similarly  equipped. 

"One  of  the  men  at  the  wheel  asked  a  woman 
who  was  amusing  a  baby  on  the  deck  beside 
him  for  a  light,  upon  which  she  removed  the 
cigarette  from  her  charming  mouth  with  its 
red  teeth,  and  accommodated  the  gentleman, 
meantime  seizing  the  occasion  to  spit  on  the 
deck.  The  baby  had  on  only  one  garment,  a 
shirt  that  by  no  possibility  could  have  reached 
below  his  waist,  and  which,  because  of  creasing, 
was  never  below  his  armpits.  His  mother  wore 
a  red  shawl  twisted  about  her  forehead,  and 
when  the  baby  had  procured  his  lunch,  she 
deposited  him  on  the  deck  and  then  turned  her 
attention    to    performing    an    operation    upon 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1898  45 

the  head  of  a  neighbor  who,  too,  squatted  upon 
the  hard  deck.  Little  animals  in  cages  display 
similar  solicitude  for  one  another.  The  search 
was  conducted  with  many  a  sharp  'click'  that 
demonstrated  progress. 

"Hanging  from  the  deck  above  were  a  num- 
ber of  freshly  caught  fish  which  some  of  the  pas- 
sengers had  purchased  at  the  market.  These 
slimy  things  brushed  my  face  more  than  once. 

"The  score  or  so  of  game-cocks  aboard,  each 
of  which  a  native  gentleman  carried  under  one 
arm,  did  not  improve  matters  at  all,  as  may  well 
be  imagined. 

"Often  peddlers  would  move  about,  and  then 
many  would  purchase  eggs,  corn  on  the  cob, 
which  was  at  once  gnawed  off,  corn-balls,  man- 
goes, bananas,  and  cakes  of  a  slimy,  chocolate 
colored,  glucose-like  concoction  that  I  would 
not  have  tasted  for  the  whole  ship. 

"Finally  'Biiian'  was  shouted  and  the  captain 
pointed  to  the  shore  and  nodded  as  I  looked 
at  him  inquiringly. 

"Half  a  dozen  rude  boats  —  dug-outs  and  two 
thatched-roofed  affairs  about  five  feet  wide  — 
bumped  into  us  with  the  usual  excitement, 
everybody  cursing  and  yelling  at  once.  I 
clambered  down  into  one  of  the  latter  style. 
Bent  quite  double,  for  the  roof  was  so  low  I 
could  not  sit  erect,  and  in  the  terrific  heat, 
which  was  surely  ninety  something  and  it  was 
just  noon,  and  in  the  midst  of  half  a  score  of 
native  women,  children,  and  men,  over  some  of 
whom  I  stumbled,  with  their  garlic,  game-cocks, 
smoking  cigarettes,  fish,  and  ill-smelling  bundles 
of  remarkable  purchases  in  the  city,  I  was  a 


46        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

good  deal  disturbed,  for  the  effect  of  all  these 
things  on  my  nerves  made  me  doubt  if  I  could 
long  endure  this  filth  and  stench  without  be- 
coming ill." 

It  should  be  repeated  that  one  must  not  be 
misled  by  any  pictures  of  apparently  intelligent, 
well-dressed  Tagalogs,  such  as  were  to  be 
found  in  say  ten  families  on  the  average  in 
every  town  of  as  many  thousand  population. 
These  ten  families  were  on  one  side ;  on  the 
other  were  the  ignorant  mass  who  had  always 
been  subject  to  the  former.^ 

In  1898,  roads  worthy  of  such  a  designation 
connected  the  various  communities  of  the  Taga- 

*  Dr.  David  P.  Barrows,  general  superintendent  of  education 
and  at  one  time  head  of  the  Bureau  of  Non-Christian  Tribes  said  : 
"  If  you  go  into  a  town  of  ten  or  twelve  thousand  people  you  will 
meet  perhaps  with  a  dozen,  and  generally  less,  families  who  repre- 
sent the  dominant  social  element  there,  who  are  cultivated,  who 
have  received  some  Spanish  education,  who  have  wealth,  social 
position,  and  who  are  commonly  represented  as  being  the  type 
of  the  Filipino  people.  They  are  a  type,  but  they  are  only  one 
type.  .  .  .  My  observation,  speaking  about  the  historical  condi- 
tion, is  that  they  are  directly  descended,  or  at  least  their  social 
prestige  is  a  direct  inheritance,  from  the  conditions  which  the 
Spaniards  found  there  three  hundred  years  ago.  .  .  .  The  rest 
are  a  population  who  have  no  education,  who  have  no  wealth, 
and  who  are  controlled  economically  and  socially  by  the  upper 
class,  or,  as  it  is  called,  the  genie  illustrada  —  the  illustrious  class. 
.  .  .  This  upper  class  is  very  ambitious.  That  is  one  of  its 
first  qualities,  I  think,  that  strikes  one.  They  are  keenly  am- 
bitious —  ambitious  for  education,  ambitious  for  participation 
in  the  political  affairs  of  the  islands."     Census  P.  I.,  vol.  I,  p.  510. 


THE   PROBLEM  IN   1898  47 

logs  only  in  the  dry  months  of  the  winter.  In 
the  rainy  season,  from  May  first  to  October 
first,  about  two  thirds  of  an  inch  of  rain  fell 
per  diem;  when  it  came  down,  it  dropped  a 
cloudful  at  a  time,  and  such  roads  as  there  were 
became  but  a  succession  of  impassable  gullies 
and  holes.  It  was  common  to  have  an  entire 
interruption  of  traffic  for  months  at  a  time 
between  villages  but  ten  miles  apart. 

There  was  but  one  line  of  railroad  in  all  the 
Archipelago.  It  extended  for  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles  to  the  north  of  Manila  to  Dagu- 
pan,  on  the  west  coast,  a  narrow  gauge  affair 
with  crude  traffic  equipment  constructed  in  the 
early  nineties,  at  the  expense  of  Spain.  But 
the  journey  was  apt  to  be  uncertain  in  the  wet 
season,  and  usually  consumed  eight  hours. 

Silver  was  the  basis  of  the  money  system, 
and  certainly  nothing  worse  could  have  been 
devised,  as  it  worked  out  in  this  far-away  com- 
munity. It  required  several  hours  to  deposit 
fifty  thousand  dollars,  the  money  being  carried 
through  the  streets  in  sacks  like  meal,  on  the 
heads  of  almost  naked  coolies.  Wild  fluctua- 
tions in  the  value  of  coins  were  common,  and 
even  when  silver  bullion  was  going  down  all 
over  the  world,  Spain  was  coining  it  for  the 
Filipinos,  far  below  the  intrinsic  value  the  coin 
was  stated  to  represent;  and  in  1898  the  peso, 
the  silver  dollar,  was  quoted  in  the  world  mar- 


48        THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

kets  as  of  the  value  of  forty-one  cents  gold. 
No  merchant  could  reckon  closely  a  day,  or 
even  an  hour,  in  advance.  He  would  engage 
goods  for  delivery  on  three  months,  only  to 
find  that  exchange  had  so  gone  up  that  he 
would  be  obliged  to  pay  for  that  item  alone 
enough  to  offset  his  expected  profit. 

There  was  hardly  a  record  in  the  entire  tribe 
of  the  Tagalogs  that  could  serve  as  the  basis  for 
a  sound  title  to  real  estate.  The  attitude  of 
each  purported  owner  in  possession  was  that 
he  had  the  property  and  was  going  to  keep  it 
until  it  was  taken  away  from  him;  and  if 
through  illness,  or  through  bad  management 
or  some  other  misfortune  a  native  became  in- 
debted to  one  of  the  gente  illustrada,  the  debtor's 
honor  compelled  him  to  offer  his  services  to 
the  creditor  until  the  obligation  was  liquidated. 
In  many  instances,  a  man  spent  his  whole 
life  in  the  slavery  of  an  unscrupulous  and  better 
educated  native,  to  pay  no  more  than  a  few 
dollars.  That  is  the  device  that  is  called 
peonage  in  other  lands.  In  the  Philippines 
it  is  caciquism,  an  institution  that  exerted  a  far 
greater  effect  upon  its  victim,  who  felt  obliged 
to  obey  any  command  of  the  master,  no  matter 
what  its  nature  might  be. 

To  this  condition  must  be  ascribed  many  of 
the  terrible  crimes  committed  by  natives  in 
the  turbulent  days  from  1896  to  1900.     When 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  49 

told  by  the  man  to  whom  the  debt  bound 
them  to  bury  certain  others  alive,  it  was  done, 
and  it  never  occurred  to  those  who  obeyed  the 
order  that  they  were  not  justified.  Many  were 
chopped  to  pieces  and  many  throats  were  cut 
by  these  means ;  but  even  when  there  was  no 
money  consideration  upon  which  to  found  a 
relationship  sufficient  to  insure  the  carrying 
out  of  such  dastardly  work,  it  was  common 
enough  for  commissions  of  this  character  to  be 
executed  by  a  native  merely  because  the  man 
commanding  it  was  an  official,  or  wealthy,  or 
educated.  Until  our  occupation,  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  natives  would  do  anything  from 
throat-cutting  to  paying  money  that  any 
member  of  the  gente  illustrada  would  demand. 

Such  were  the  million  and  a  half  Tagalogs 
in  1898.  Such  are  they  to-day,  except  as  little 
more  than  a  decade  may  have  affected  them. 
Such  were  their  racial  characteristics ;  and  the 
Tagalogs  were  by  far  the  most  advanced  of  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  Archipelago. 

Within  twenty  miles  to  the  northeast  of 
Manila  were  people  of  the  mountain  forests, 
or  Bukidnons,  as  the  native  dialect  classes 
them,  utter  savages,  pagans.  They  numbered 
fifty-six  thousand,  made  up  of  many  small 
tribes.  A  large  percentage  lived  in  tree  tops. 
They  were  more  primitive  than  any  race  we 
have  ever  had  upon  this  continent,   with  the 


50        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

possible  exception  of  the  Mound-builders.  They 
did  not  comprehend  the  Tagalog  or  Spanish 
tongues,  and  were  absolutely  illiterate. 

Thirty  miles  from  Manila  and  adjoining  the 
latter  savages  were  the  Negritos,  the  original 
people  of  the  Islands,  wanderers,  pigmies  less 
than  five  feet  in  height,  round-headed,  nude, 
wild  men  with  undeveloped  jaw.  They  could 
not  speak  Tagalog  or  Spanish  and  were  of  the 
lowest  type  of  people,  as  far  as  we  know,  living 
on  the  earth.  There  were  twenty-five  thousand 
of  them,  all  of  whom  were  illiterate. 

Beginning  thirty  miles  northwest  of  Manila 
and  extending  sixty  miles  to  the  north  in  a 
solid  block  twenty  miles  wide  from  that  shore 
of  Manila  Bay,  were  two  hundred  and  eighty 
thousand  Pampangans  with  a  dialect  of  their 
own,  living  in  all  general  aspects  just  as  the 
neighboring  Tagalogs,  but  more  illiterate,  with 
the  same  or  similar  superstitions,  the  same  un- 
sanitary surroundings,  the  same  general  charac- 
teristics. Twenty-six  per  cent  of  all  over 
ten  years  of  age  could  be  classed  as  literate. 
One  and  five  tenths  per  cent  of  all  ten  years  of 
age  and  more  had  Superior  Education ;  and  I 
find  in  Tavera's  "Biblioteca"  eleven  books  in 
this  language  —  a  dictionary,  1732,  two  man- 
uals of  conversation  (Spanish-Pampango,  1875 
and  1882),  seven  religious  works,  and  one  work 
upon  patience  as  a  virtue. 


^■■2  P 


f            ^ 

'■%^^  ^  - 

< 
< 


O 

Si 
O 


Ik. 


O 

O 
2; 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  51 

On  the  north  of  these  last  was  a  block  of 
Ilocanos,  classed  among  the  civilized  people, 
occupying  the  same  amount  of  territory  as  the 
Pampangans.  Except  for  the  intervention  of 
the  Pangasinans,  who  bisected  them  with  a 
strip  five  or  ten  miles  wide,  the  Ilocanos  ex- 
tended clear  up  the  western  coast  and  usually 
less  than  ten  miles  inland,  to  the  northernmost 
point  of  Luzon.  In  all  they  numbered  eight 
hundred  and  four  thousand  and  were  distinctly 
below  the  Tagalogs  in  development.  But 
twenty  per  cent  were  at  all  literate,  and  but 
two  per  cent  had  Superior  Education.  They 
did  not  understand  Tagalog,  and  had  a  number 
of  dialects  incomprehensible  to  others  of  their 
tribe.  Tavera  learned  of  but  five  books  in  their 
tongue — one  dictionary,  1873,  Ilocano-Spanish; 
two  religious  works,  a  comedy,  and  a  volume 
upon  manners.^  There  were,  however,  five 
Spanish  works  for  learning  Ilocano. 

Three  hundred  and  forty-three  thousand 
Pangasinans,  also  classed  as  civilized,  occupied 
a  section  upon  the  western  coast  beginning  about 
a  hundred  miles  in  air  line  above  Manila,  and 
extending  inland  some  score  of  miles.  They 
were,  in  the  main,  on  a  par  with  the  Pampan- 
gans, the  two  agreeing  in  literacy  and  in  Superior 
Education,  but  with  a  distinctive  tongue.  I 
find  seven  books  in  their  language  —  one  dic- 

^  Tavera,  "Biblioteca  Filipina." 


52        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

tlonary,  Pangasinan-Spanish  (1865),  and  the 
others  all  religious.^ 

Occupying  the  entire  central  part  of  northern 
Luzon  were  the  wild  Igorots,  the  people  of  the 
marvelous  rice  terraces  and  the  habit  of  head- 
hunting. Their  worship  was  the  most  primitive, 
and  they  lacked  any  means  of  written  com- 
munication, even  wanting  that  of  signs  or 
symbols,  such  as  the  American  Cave-dwellers 
possessed.  There  were  two  hundred  and  eleven 
thousand  of  them,  with  a  language  all  their  own. 

To  the  east  of  these  lay  one  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  Cagayans,  classed  as  civilized, 
who  were  much  like  the  Ilocanos,  only  less 
literate,  and  only  six  tenths  of  one  per  cent  of 
all  ten  years  of  age  and  over  had  Superior  Edu- 
cation. Their  language  was  incomprehensible 
to  a  Tagalog  and  to  most  of  their  immediate 
neighbors. 

Last  of  all  above  Manila,  beginning  twenty 
miles  or  so  to  the  north,  on  the  western  coast, 
were  the  Zambalens,  who  ran  along  the  shore, 
usually  not  more  than  ten  miles  inland,  for 
seventy  miles  or  so,  forty-eight  thousand  in 
number,  called  civilized.  These  were  com- 
parable to  the  Ilocanos,  a  little  below  them  in 
literacy  and  the  Superior  Educated,  one  and 
nine  tenths  per  cent  representing  the  latter 
class.     They,  too,  had  their  own  language,  in 

^Tavera,  "Biblioteca  Filipina." 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  53 

which  I  find  but  one  book,  and  that  of  a  reli- 
gious type.^ 

The  BIcols  occupied  the  entire  southern 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  the  island.  They 
numbered  five  hundred  and  sixty-six  thousand 
and  were  but  little  different  from  the  other 
civilized  tribes  in  general  characteristics.  Ow- 
ing to  the  presence  of  a  number  of  the  Tagalogs 
among  the  Bicols,  the  latter  had  a  literacy  of 
twenty-three  per  cent  of  those  of  ten  or  more 
years  of  age,  although  the  percentage  of  those 
having  Superior  Education  was  but  one  and 
six  tenths  per  cent.  Except  where  the  Taga- 
logs and  the  Bicols  were  occupants  of  the  same 
locality,  they  could  not  understand  one  another, 
and  indeed  there  were  so  many  dialects  in  the 
Bicol  country  as  to  make  it  seem  as  if  the  people 
were  divided  into  an  equal  number  of  foreign 
races.  They  appear  to  have  had  twenty-seven 
volumes  in  the  vernacular  —  twenty-two  reli- 
gious, four  vocabularies,  'etc.,  in  Bicol-Spanish 
(in  1870,  1882,  and  two  in  1896),  and  one 
volume  upon  good  manners.^ 

Luzon,  then,  which  comprises  slightly  more 
than  one  third  of  the  area  of  the  Archipelago, 
and,  with  3,745,000  people,  nearly  one  half  of 
all  its  inhabitants,  contained  2,600,000  of  ten 
years  and  over  among  so-called  Christianized 

1  Tavera,  "  Biblioteca  Filipina." 
3  Ibid. 


54        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

tribes,  of  whom  two  million  could  not  read  and 
write  a  word  of  any  language,  no  matter  how 
limited  or  crude  it  might  be.  In  other  words, 
nearly  eighty  per  cent  of  the  natives  of  ten 
and  over  in  Luzon,  excluding  a  fourth  of  a 
million  of  absolute  savages,  could  not  read  and 
write  a  word  of  any  language  in  1898;  and  of 
the  twenty  per  cent  who  could  read  and  write, 
not  more  than  seven  per  cent  could  read  and 
write  any  language  in  which  there  was  anything 
to  read  —  that  is,  in  which  there  were  any  books 
of  general  information  or  newspapers ;  and  still 
further,  of  even  greater  importance,  of  this 
twenty  per  cent  but  fifty-five  thousand,  or  two 
per  cent,  had  better  education  than  the  equiva- 
lent of  that  provided  by  the  first  nine  years  of 
American  school  life.  Fully  one  half  of  the 
island  was  occupied  by  primitive  wild  men. 

This  is  the  problem  as  it  came  to  us  in  Luzon, 
the  most  highly  cultivated  of  all  the  Archipelago. 

There  were  three  peoples,  one  may  say,  in  all 
the  islands  to  the  south  of  Luzon  :  the  _^isayans, 
who  were  classed  as  civilized,  the  largest  tribe 
in  the  Philippines,  with  3,219,000  souls,  more 
than  twice  the  population  of  the  Tagalogs ; 
and  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand 
wild  men  and  Moros,  some  of  the  latter 
civilized,  but  a  large  number  savage.  The 
Visayans  occupied  a  narrow  strip  on  southern 
Mindoro,   all  of  Masbate,  all  but  a  tenth   of 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1898  55 

Samar,  all  of  Leyte,  of  Bohol,  and  of  Cebu, 
the  entire  coast  of  Panay,  and,  on  its  northern 
and  eastern  sides,  about  half  the  coast  line 
of  Mindanao.  All  the  remainder  of  these 
islands  was  occupied  by  Moros  and  by  utter 
savages  of  the  most  primitive  and  irreconcil- 
able character.  That  is,  of  all  the  large  islands 
south  of  Luzon,  five  sixths  of  Mindoro,  a  third 
of  Panay,  three  fourths  of  Negros,  nine  tenths 
of  Mindanao,  and  all  of  Paragua  were  occupied 
altogether  by  Moros  and  savages,  few  of  the 
latter  approaching  in  stamina  and  solidity  the 
American  Indian.  In  area,  the  Moros  and  these 
savages  took  up  more  than  ninety  per  cent  of 
everything  south  of  Luzon. 

The  Visayans  were  in  all  broad  lines  the  same 
in  instincts,  in  character,  in  nature  as  the  other 
civilized  tribes  already  considered.  They  were, 
however,  more  illiterate,  only  some  fourteen 
per  cent  of  all  of  ten  years  and  more  being  able 
to  read  and  write,  while  the  Superior  Educated 
class  comprised  less  than  one  per  cent.  In 
their  tongue  Tavera  discovered  nineteen  volumes 
—  sixteen  religious,  a  medical  aid  of  sixty-six 
pages,  a  dictionary  (1852),  and  a  grammar 
(1876),  both  Visayan-Spanish.  But  there  were 
eleven  similar  works  by  which  a  Spaniard  could 
acquire  Visayan. 

This  completes  the  Archipelago.  The  total 
population  classed  as  civilized,  of  ten  and  more 


S6        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

years  of  age,  numbered  4,973,000.  Only  a 
million  of  these,  or  twenty  per  cent,^  could 
read  and  write  in  any  language,  including  the 
native  dialects,  in  which,  it  is  repeated,  there 
was  practically  no  reading  matter  of  educa- 
tional worth.  Of  all  civilized  persons  in  the 
Archipelago  who  were  ten  and  more  years  of 
age  (4,973,000),  five  hundred  and  thirty-five 
thousand,  or  but  little  over  ten  per  cent,  —  only 
seven  per  cent  of  the  entire  population,  —  could 
read  and  write  Spanish,  in  which  alone  there  was 
available  printed  literature  to  give  general  in- 
formation;  and  only  seventy-six  thousand  per- 
sons had  more  than  nine  years  of  schooling, 
they  constituting  one  and  six  tenths  per  cent  of 
the  Christian  population  of  ten  or  more  years  of 
age,  and  but  one  per  cent  of  the  total  population 
found  for  census  purposes. 

That  is,  as  one  went  through  all  the  Philip- 
pines at  the  time  we  took  them,  but  a  single 
person  in  every  hundred  met  with  had  been  in 
school  for  over  nine  years. ^ 

Tavera's  catalogue,  so  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  determine,  records  but  237  volumes  in 
all  the  dialects  together:  149  (144  have  al- 
ready been  cited)  strictly  of  a  religious  charac- 
ter; sixteen  only  which  would  make  it  possible 
for  a  native  to  acquire  Spanish  (the  Ibanogs 

*  Census  P.  I.,  vol.  II,  p.  78. 
2  Ibid. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  57 

and  Bogobos  each  had  one  volume  of  this 
character,  in  addition  to  those  possessed  by  the 
large  tribes,  fourteen  of  which  works  have  here- 
tofore been  cited) ;  and  seventy-two  of  a  mis- 
cellaneous class,  sixty-seven  of  which  v/ere  in 
Tagalog,  —  fifty  of  the  sixty-seven  were  in 
verse,  all  but  two  mere  doggerel,  —  the  re- 
maining five  of  the  seventy-two  miscellaneous 
works  being  a  medical  help,  a  book  upon  pa- 
tience, two  upon  good  manners,  and  a  comedy. 

So  far  as  I  have  learned  from  Tavera's  work 
this,  in  substance  certainly,  if  not  exactly,  was 
the  literature  of  three  hundred  years  open  to 
the  more  than  ninety  per  cent  of  the  Filipinos 
who  were  not  literate  in  Spanish. 

This  aifords  one  book  in  Filipino  dialect  to 
about  every  forty-two  hundred  members  of  the 
Christian  tribes  ten  or  more  years  of  age  who 
could  read  and  write  in  any  tongue ;  and  but  one 
volume  for  every  33,500  of  the  total  popu- 
lation. 

Nipa  huts  constituted  ninety-four  per  cent 
of  the  houses  in  all  the  Archipelago,  the  better 
type  having  two  or  more  rooms,  with  an  in- 
closed stable  beneath  the  flooring.  Except 
for  these  latter,  relatively  small  in  number, 
the  huts  w^ere  as  already  pictured,  as  was 
usually  the  life  of  those  who  existed  in  them. 

The  Tagalogs,  in  what  is  known  as  the 
Cavite  Rising  of  1872,  were  the  first  to  lead 


S8        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

an  important  revolt  against  Spain.  It  was 
suppressed  in  a  most  barbarous  manner  by 
thousands  of  executions  and  wholesale  banish- 
ments. Those  crimes  were  never  forgiven  nor 
forgotten,  and  the  temporal  power  turned  to 
the  friars  for  aid  to  insure  safety  from  the 
hatred  that  followed.  The  friars,  satisfied  by  the 
opportunities  thus  presented  to  increase  their 
wealth  and  power,  undertook  the  main  part  of 
the  task  of  breaking  down  the  spirit  of  revolt. 
By  1896  the  people  had  formed  in  almost  every 
town  among  the  Tagalogs  what  they  called  the 
Katipunan,  or  league.  The  friars  termed  it 
Freemasonry;  and  when  the  Archbishop  of 
Manila  was  informed  that  the  members  would 
not  confess  with  regard  to  its  aims  and  acts,  he 
decreed  that  all  vows  that  could  not  be  confessed 
were  anti-Christian,  and  the  friars  were  com- 
manded to  make  complaint  to  the  local  magis- 
trates of  all  who  were  members  of  this  society. 
The  friars  seized  the  occasion  as  one  by  which 
they  could  rid  themselves  of  anybody  they 
pleased;  and  hundreds  of  fathers  were  taken 
with  no  warning  or  justification  from  their 
families,  and  with  no  trial  or  even  arraignment 
or  hearing  of  any  kind,  deported  to  African 
penal  settlements  belonging  to  Spain,  or  to 
other  islands  filled  with  savages.  Many  of 
them  died  on  the  way.  The  Manila  prisons 
were  overflowing  with  them.     Many  of  these 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1898  59 

unfortunates  were  so  cruelly  maimed  by  their 
jailers  as  never  again  to  be  able  to  earn  a 
livelihood.  Some  actually  perished  under  tor- 
ture. Seventy  of  them  were  suffocated  in  the 
ancient  Fort  Santiago,  right  in  the  city  itself. 
More  than  forty-three  hundred^  were  at  one  time 
waiting  trial  by  court-martial.  Accused  persons 
came  from  other  ports  in  shiploads,  bound  hand 
and  foot,  confined  in  the  hot,  stifling  holds ;  and 
when  they  arrived  at  Manila,  freight  cranes  were 
turned  over  the  hatches,  hooks  were  let  down 
into  the  darkness  between  decks  and  attached 
to  the  prisoners  one  by  one,  who  were  then 
hauled  high  in  the  air,  swung  out  over  the 
wharf,  and  dropped  down  exactly  like  so  many 
bales  of  hemp. 

The  wealthiest  men  in  Manila  were  incar- 
cerated. Nobody  with  money  could  hope  to 
escape.  No  demon  could  be  hated  or  feared 
as  was  the  friar.  But  he  took  no  backward 
course,  only  grew  more  and  more  relentless. 
Rizal  wrote  in  the  Spanish  tongue  his  Noli  me 
tangere  [Touch  me  not],  which  exposed  the  inner 
life  of  these  oppressive  priests.  It  was  the 
niiitch  that  produced  the  explosion,  for  when 
the  Spanish  officials,  although  they  did  all  they 
could  to  save  him,  yielded  to  the  demands  of 
the  church  and  had  him  shot  on  the  Luneta  in 
Manila,  they  sealed  the  doom  of  Spanish  domin- 

^ Foreman,  "The  Philippine  Islands,"  p.  377. 


6o        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ion  in  the  Islands.  "Death  to  the  Friars"  was 
the  oriflamme.  Aguinaldo,  with  a  peculiar 
talent  for  promoting  organization,  and  reputed 
to _possess__a fUingzonjing,  a  mystic  power  that 
would  refract  a  bullet  or  a  knifeT^sprang  to  the 
fore,  and  in  less  than  a  year  had  the  Spaniards 
suing  for  peace.  In  December,  1897,  he  and 
thirty-four  of  his  leaders  agreed  in  a  written 
contract  with  the  Spanish  authorities  in  consid- 
eration of  eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars, of  which  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  was 
paid  him  in  cash  advance,  to  leave  the  Islands,  not 
to  return  until  Spain  consented.  Aguinaldo  was 
to  receive  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  more, 
but  Spain  defaulted  the  amount,  together  with 
all  the  rest  of  the  balance,  and  no  one  of  the 
thirty-five  retiring  patriots  except  Aguinaldo 
appears  to  have  received  a  dollar.  He  got  all 
there  was.  It  is  maintained  by  his  friends  that 
he  expended__part  of  this  money  in  purchasing 
arms  for  his  second  revolution. 

In  this  rebellion  atrocities  altogether  foreign 
to  civilized  people  were  common.  One  friar 
was  cut  up  in  small  pieces,  the  operation  all 
carefully  arranged  so  that  his  life  would  last 
as  long  as  possible.  Another  was  saturated 
with  oil  and  set  aflame.  Another  was  bathed  in 
oil  and  fried  over  a  slow  fire  on  a  bamboo  spit 
that  was  run  through  him  in  such  a  manner  as 
not   to   be   fatal   of   itself.     A   requiem    Mass 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1898  61 

celebrated  this  last.  About  sixteen  miles  from 
Manila,  the  natives  caught  a  Spanish  lieutenant 
and  murdered  him.  They  then  seized  his 
widow  and  eleven-year-old  daughter.  The  lat- 
ter they  ravished  to  death,  and  were  burying 
the  former  alive  when,  a  raving  maniac,  she  was 
rescued. 

But  before  Aguinaldo  had  been  gone  six 
months,  and  although  their  old  leaders  had  been 
bought  off  as  described,  the  natives  were  again 
in  the  field ;  then  Dewey  sailed  into  Manila 
Bay  —  and  we  were  in  the  Philippines. 


CHAPTER  II 

WE  BEGIN 

Our  international  obligations  —  President  McKinley 
sends  the  Schurman  Commission  to  study  the 
Islands  —  Schurman  Commission  reports  natives 
incompetent  for  self-government  and  that  anarchy 
would  follow  their  ascension  to  power  —  The  Taft 
Commission  makes  a  similar  finding  —  Particulars 
of  our  governmental  system  —  Extraordinary 
powers  given  the  local  government  by  American 
Congress  —  Remarkable  number  of  natives  in 
their  government  in  1903. 

Under  the  law  of  nations  as  accepted  by  all 
civilized  peoples,  the  surrender  of  Manila  to 
our  forces  made  it  incumbent  upon  us  to  pro- 
vide for  the  security  of  persons  and  property 
found  therein.^  The  obligation  that  had  been 
Spain's  passed  to  us.     Germany  had  five  war- 

*  Sec.  III.  of  The  Hague  Second  Convention,  on  Military  Au- 
thority over  Hostile  Territory.  "Art.  XLH.  Territory  is  con- 
sidered occupied  when  it  is  actually  placed  under  the  authority 
of  the  hostile  army." 

"Art.  XLHI.  The  authority  of  the  legitimate  power  having 
actually  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  occupant,  the  latter  shall 
take  all  steps  in  his  power  to  reestablish  and  insure,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, public  order  and  safety." 

62 


WE  BEGIN  63 

ships  in  Manila  harbor  to  see  that  we  performed 
this  duty.  France  had  several  of  hers  there, 
and  so  had  England,  for  the  same  purpose ; 
and  others  watched  our  every  movement  — 
until  Dewey  was  reenforced,  and  then  they 
moved  away. 


(( 


A  hostile  territory,  subdued  by  the  armies 
of  the  United  States,  does  not  pass  under  the 
dominion  either  of  its  constitution  or  its  laws. 
.  .  .  While  war  continues,  it  is  the  military 
duty  of  the  President  as  commander-in-chief, 
to  provide  for  the  security  of  persons  and  prop- 
erty, and  for  the  administration  of  justice.''^ 

Such  was  the  duty  of  President  McKinley 
while  the  Spanish  War  continued,  and  when 
that  ended  with  the  cession  to  us  of  all  the 
Archipelago,  it  became  the  measure  of  his 
obligation  toward  all  the  peoples  therein;  and 
such  it  continued  to  be  during  the  struggle 
with  Aguinaldo  which  followed  immediately 
and  endured  for  more  than  two  years,  until 
the  summer  of  1901. 

To  the  performance  of  this  delicate  task 
Mr.  McKinley  proceeded  with  that  caution 
which  was  so  prominent  a  characteristic  of  his 
nature.  There  was  a  remarkable  dearth  of 
reliable  literature  upon  these  islands  so  un- 
ceremoniously deposited  in  our  keeping,  and 
before  we  had  come  into  formal  possession  of 

^Taylor,  "International  Public  Law,"  Section  579. 


64        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

them,  the  President  had  dispatched  across  the 
Pacific  to  study  the  situation  what  is  known  as 
the  Schurman  Commission.  Its  members  were 
the  President  of  Cornell  University,  Jacob  G. 
Schurman,  an  authority  upon  such  problems, 
Rear-admiral  Dewey,  Major-general  Otis,  both 
of  whom  had  been  months  on  the  ground, 
Charles  Denby,  our  Minister  to  China  for  the 
preceding  thirteen  years,  and  Professor  Dean  C. 
Worcester  of  Ann  Arbor,  an  ornithological  ex- 
pert, who  had  twice  headed  important  expedi- 
tions to  study  among  these  very  people.  They 
assembled  in  Manila  in  March,  1899.  They 
invited  testimony  from  every  source  and  re- 
ported in  January  of  the  following  year  with 
the  following : 

•  "Their  (the  Filipinos')  lack  of  education  and 
political  experience,  combined  with  their  racial 
and  linguistic  diversities,  disqualify  them,  in 
spite  of  their  mental  gifts  and  domestic  vir- 
tues, to  undertake  the  task  of  governing  the 
archipelago  at  the  present  time.  .  .  .  Should 
our  power,  by  any  fatality,  be  withdrawn, 
the  commission  believes  that  the  government 
of  the  Philippines  would  speedily  lapse  into 
anarchy,  which  would  excuse,  if  it  did  not 
necessitate,  the  intervention  of  other  powers, 
and  the  eventual  division  of  the  islands  among 
them.  Only  through  American  occupation, 
therefore,  is  the  idea  of  a  free,  self-governing, 
and  united  Philippine  commonwealth  at  all  , 
conceivable." 


WE   BEGIN  65 

A  month  after  this  conclusion  was  in  his 
hands,  McKinley,  still  acting  under  the  war 
powers  of  this  nation,  appointed  a  second  com- 
mission, endowing  it,  a  civilian  agency,  with 
the  powers  of  a  military  government.  This 
Commission  was  headed  by  the  senior  circuit 
judge  of  the  country,  W.  H.  Taft,  who  was 
selected  as  the  best  available  man  for  the  posi- 
tion; Bernard  Moses,  of  the  Chair  of  History 
and  Political  Economy  of  the  University  of 
California,  Professor  Worcester,  Luke  E.Wright, 
a  distinguished  lawyer,  and  the  Chief  Justice 
of  Samoa,  Henry  C.  Ide,  were  the  remaining 
members.  They  were,  as  was  the  first  Commis- 
sion, of  the  different  political  parties.  Even 
in  the  heat  of  national  campaigns  in  which  the 
Philippines  have  been  an  important  issue,  it 
has  never  been  suggested  that  we  could  have 
sent  stronger  men.  After  some  months  in  the 
Islands,  they  reported  as  follows,  in  a  resume : 

,  ''Manila,  August  21,  1900. 

"Secretary  of  War, 

"Washington,  D.C 

"Replying  to  dispatch.  Commission  reports: 
It  has  for  two  months  and  a  half  made  diligent 
inquiries  into  conditions  prevailing.  Change 
of  policy  by  turning  Islands  over  to  a  coterie 
of  Tagalog  politicians  will  blight  their  fair 
prospects  of  enormous  improvement,  drive  out 
capital,  make  life  and  property  —  secular  and 


ee       THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

religious  —  most  insecure,  banish  by  fear  of 
cruel  proscription  considerable  body  of  con- 
servative Filipinos  who  have  aided  Americans 
in  well-founded  belief  that  their  people  are 
not  now  fit  for  self-government,  and  rein- 
troduce the  same  oppression  and  corruption 
which  existed  in  all  provinces  under  Malolos 
government  during  the  eight  months  of  their 
control.  The  result  will  be  factional  strife 
between  jealous  leaders,  chaos,  and  anarchy, 
and  will  require  and  justify  active  intervention 
of  our  government  or  some  other."  ^ 

There  seemed  no  escape  from  the  unanimity 
of  judgment  of  these  two  able  commissions,  and 
the  President  accepted  them  as  conclusive; 
and  in  his  "Instructions  of  the  President  to 
the  Philippine  Commission,"  dated  April  7, 
1900,  Mr.  McKinley  said : 

"The  articles  of  capitulation  of  the  city  of 
Manila  on  the  13th  of  August,  1898,  concluded 
with  these  words :  'This  city,  its  inhabitants, 
its  churches  and  religious  worship,  its  educa- 
tional establishments,  and  its  private  property 
of  all  descriptions  are  placed  under  the  special 
safeguard  of  the  faith  and  honor  of  the  American 
army.'  I  believe  that  this  pledge  has  been 
faithfully  kept.  As  high  and  sacred  an  obliga- 
tion rests  upon  the  government  of  the  United 
States  to  give  protection  for  life  and  property, 
civil  and  religious  freedom,  and  wise,  firm, 
and  unselfish  guidance  in  the  paths  of  peace 
and  prosperity  to  all  the  people  of  the^Philip- 

1  1900,  Report  Secretary  of  War,  pp.  80-82. 


WE  BEGIN  (i^ 

pine  Islands.  I  charge  this  Commission  to 
labor  for  the  full  performance  of  this  obliga- 
tion, which  concerns  the  honor  and  conscience 
of  their  country,  in  the  firm  hope  that  through 
their  labor  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  Philip- 
pine Islands  may  come  to  look  back  with  grati- 
tude to  the  day  when  God  gave  victory  to 
American  arms  at  Manila  and  set  their  land 
under  the  sovereignty  and  the  protection  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  .  .  . 

"You  (the  Secretary  of  War)  will  Instruct 
the  Commission  to  devote  their  attention  in 
the  first  instance  to  the  establishment  of  munici- 
pal governments,  in  which  the  natives  of  the 
islands,  both  In  the  cities  and  in  the  rural  com- 
munities, shall  be  afforded  the  opportunity  to 
manage  their  own  local  affairs  to  the  fullest 
extent  to  which  they  are  capable,  and  subject 
to  the  least  degree  of  supervision  and  control 
which  a  careful  study  of  their  capacities  and 
observation  of  the  working  of  native  control 
show  to  be  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of 
law,  order,  and  loyalty.  .  .  . 

"In  all  forms  of  government  and  adminis- 
trative provisions  which  they  are  authorized 
to  prescribe,  the  Commission  should  bear  in 
mind  that  the  government  which  they  are 
establishing  Is  designed  not  for  our  satisfaction, 
nor  for  the  oppression  of  our  theoretical  views, 
but  for  the  happiness,  peace,  and  prosperity 
of  the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands."  ^ 

The  Secretary  of  War,  Root,  in  his  annual 
report  for  1901  interpreted  these  instructions 
as   directing  the   Commission : 

*  1900,  Report  Secretary  of  War,  p.  72. 


68        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

"To  steadily  press  forward  as  rapidly  as  it 
can  be  done  safely  and  thoroughly,  the  gradual 
substitution  of  government  through  civil  agents 
for  government  through  military  agents,  so 
that  the  administration  of  the  military  officer 
shall  be  continually  narrowed,  and  that  of  the 
civil  officer  continually  enlarged,  until  the 
time  comes  when  the  army  can,  without  im- 
periling the  peace  and  order  of  the  country, 
be  relegated  to  the  same  relation  toward  gov- 
ernment which  it  occupies  in  the  United  States." 

Those  were  the  specific,  binding  instructions 
upon  our  representatives,  and  it  is  submitted 
that  they  are  unexampled  in  the  history  of 
colonization.  Their  spirit  is  further  empha- 
sized by  an  address  of  Mr.  McKinley,  not  long 
before  his  assassination,  at  San  Francisco,  where 

he  said : 

4 

"These  Philippine  Islands  are  ours,  not  to 

subjugate,  but  to  emancipate ;  not  to  rule  in 
the  power  of  might,  but  to  take  to  those  dis- 
tant people  the  principles  of  liberty,  of  free- 
dom of  conscience,  and  of  opportunity  that  are 
enjoyed  by  the  people  of  the  United  States." 

Manila  was  immediately  established  as  the 
seat  of  government  as  represented  by  the  Taft 
Commission,  and  the  task  of  setting  up  a  civil 
administration  throughout  the  Islands  was 
undertaken  with  all  dispatch.  The  legislative 
powers  were  conferred  upon  this  Commission, 
the  judicial  powers  were  exercised  by  the  courts 


WE  BEGIN  69 

created  by  the  Commission  in  its  legislative 
capacity,  and  the  executive  authority  was  left 
in  the  commander  of  the  military  forces  of  the 
United  States  still  occupying  the  country. 

The  scope  of  the  legislative  authority  resi- 
dent in  the  Commission  was  defined  in  the  in- 
structions as  follows  : 

"Exercise  of  this  legislative  authority  will 
include  the  making  of  rules  and  orders,  having 
the  effect  of  law,  for  the  raising  of  revenues 
by  taxes,  customs,  and  duties,  and  imposts ; 
the  appropriation  and  expenditure  of  public 
funds  of  the  islands ;  the  establishment  of  an 
educational  system  throughout  the  islands ; 
the  establishment  of  a  system  to  secure  an 
efficient  civil  service ;  the  organization  and 
establishment  of  courts ;  the  organization  and 
establishment  of  municipal  and  departmental 
governments ;  and  all  other  matters  of  a  civil 
nature  for  which  the  military  governor  Is  now 
competent  to  provide  by  rules  or  orders  of  a 
legislative  character." 

The  sessions  of  the  Commission  when  acting 
as  a  legislature  were  often  open  and  at  stated 
periods.  Their  enactments  were  publicly  in- 
troduced and  published  as  bills  upon  which 
action  was  proposed.  If  the  matter  was  of  public 
interest,  hearings  were  announced  and  the  na- 
tives urged  to  express  their  views.  Often,  when- 
ever the  general  weal  seemed  to  demand  it,  these 
measures  were  publicly  debated  and  voted  upon. 


70        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

By  June,  1901 ,  public  order  having  been  estab- 
lished to  a  sufficient  degree,  authority  to  exer- 
cise the  executive  powers  was  transferred  from 
the  military  to  the  president  of  the  Commission ; 
continuing,  however,  the  former's  jurisdiction 
in  such  parts  of  the  Islands  as  were  still  overrun 
by  the  remnants  of  the  insurrection.  July  4, 
1 901,  Mr.  Taft  was  inaugurated  first  civil 
governor  of  the  Philippines,  and  two  months 
later  he  created  departments  of  the  interior, 
of  commerce,  of  police,  of  finance  and  justice, 
and  of  public  Instruction,  distributing  these 
among  the  other  members  of  the  Commission. 
At  the  same  time,  three  learned  natives  were 
added  to  the  body,  constituting  five  Americans 
and  three  Filipinos.  ^ 

Appropriate  legislation  was  enacted  for  a 
thorough  organization  of  the  entire  Archipelago 
into  provinces  (counties  we  should  call  them) 
containing  municipalities.  A  modern  judicial 
system  was  predicated. 

An  Insular  constabulary  and  municipal  police 
were  created,  the  commissioned  officers  Ameri- 
cans, but  all  the  men  natives.  A  civil  service 
law  was  early  put  Into  operation,  covering 
practically  all  except  the  very  highest  appoint- 
ments. Government  finances  were  guarded 
by  a  modern  system  of  account  and  audit. 
A  comprehensive  system  of  education  for  the 
entire  Archipelago  was  Instituted,  and  teachers 


WE  BEGIN  71 

were  hurried  from  America  by  the  hundreds. 
Forestry  laws  were  adopted  and  an  extensive 
system  of  public  works  entered  upon.  Revenues 
for  governmental  purposes  were  provided  for 
in  duties  and  taxes,  the  imposition  of  which 
was  not  opposed. 

Municipalities  were  made  the  political  unit, 
and  each  town  that  was  not  in  the  wild  tribe 
country  was  provided  with  a  charter.  Under 
this  document  the  rule  of  the  municipality 
devolves  upon  a  president,  a  vice-president, 
and  a  municipal  council,  all  chosen  by  the 
qualified  electorate  therein  resident,  to  serve 
for  two  years  and  until  their  successors  qualified. 
The  electorate  is  composed  of  males  above  the 
age  of  twenty-three  who  have  a  legal  residence 
there  for  six  months  last  preceding  the  date  of 
the  election,  who  are  not  subjects  of  a  foreign 
power,  and  who  have  one  of  the  following  three 
qualifications:  i.  Had  filled  one  of  several 
designated  petty  offices  during  the  Spanish 
regime  (thus  showing  some  degree  of  learning 
or  stability) ;  2.  Owned  real  property  to  the 
value  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  (gold)  or 
who  annually  paid  taxes  to  the  aggregate  value 
of  fifteen  dollars  (gold) ;  3.  Could  speak,  read, 
and  write  English  or  Spanish. 

Of  these  municipalities  there  were  at  first  1035 
with  as  many  presidents,  2906  secretaries  and 
treasurers,  and  8159  members  of  the  town  councils. 


72        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

All  of  the  foregoing  were  by  1904  chosen  by 
the  electorate  just  defined,  and  each  was  a 
Filipino.  Then  these_ thousand  municipalities 
were  divided  among  thirty-four  provinces  con- 
taining all  of  the  people  in  the  Islands  except 
the  wild  men  and  the  Moros,  while  these  were 
comprehended  in  five  districts  and  a  More 
province.  The  organization  of  the  thirty-four 
provinces  is  as  follows :  Their  government 
consists  of  five  officers  —  governor,  treasurer, 
secretary,  supervisor,  and  a  fiscal  or  prosecuting 
attorney.  The  governing  body,  called  the  pro- 
vincial board,  is  composed  of  the  governor,  the 
treasurer,  and  the  supervisor.  The  first  duty 
of  this  board  is  to  collect  the  taxes  from  the  '•^ 
various  municipalities  in  that  province.  Its 
second  function  and  the  one  that  proves  to  be 
the  most  important,  is  the  supervision  of  con- 
struction of  highways,  public  buildings,  and 
bridges.  Its  third  duty  is  a  supervision  of  the 
officials  of  the  municipalities. 

The  governor  (provincial)  has  the  power  to 
suspend  any  municipal  officer  who  appears  to  be 
delinquent,  and  he  has  to  visit  at  least  twice  a  "^ 
year  the  various  municipalities  to  hear  any  com- 
plaints against  the  local  officials.  He  was  in  1904 
elected  biennially,  by  a  convention  composed  of 
the  members  of  the  various  town  councils  in  the 
province.  The  only  restriction  upon  their  choice 
was  that  he  be  confirmed  by  the  Commission. 


WE  BEGIN  73 

Upon  the  first  Monday  in  February,  1904, 
an  election  was  held  in  all  but  two  of  the  thirty- 
four  provinces,  and  all  except  one  of  the  gov- 
ernors so  chosen  were  natives.  The  remaining 
provincial  officials  who  had  any  real  authority 
were  86  Americans  and  238  Filipinos. 

The  Moro  Province  consists  of  Mindanao  and 
adjacent  islands,  except  the  provinces  of  Surigao 
and  Misamis,  which  are  rated  as  comprised 
within  the  Christian  provinces,  and  also  the 
island  of  Isabela  de  Basilan  and  everything  to 
the  south  of  Mindanao.  The  province  is  cut 
up  into  five  districts,  the  executive  head  of  all 
being  a  governor,  with  a  secretary,  an  attorney, 
an  engineer,  a  superintendent  of  schools,  and 
a  treasurer.  These  officials  constitute  the  leg- 
islative council  of  the  province. 

There  remains  but  the  five  district  provinces,  , 
viz  :  Benguet,  Lepanto-Bontoc,  Mindoro,  Nueva 
Viscaya,  and  Paragua,  inhabited  largely  by  wild 
men.     Here  it  is  necessary  to  appoint  all  the 
officials. 

Great  attention  was  devoted  to  the  founding 
of  a  sound  and  capable  judicial  system  through- 
out the  Archipelago.  A  complete  code  of  pro-' 
cedure,  equal  to  any  in  the  United  States,  wasi 
enacted  by  the  Commission,  which  removed  at\ 
one  stroke  all  the  delays  and  uncertain  per- 
plexities of  the  Spanish  tribunals.  Codes  of 
criminal  and  civil  law  were  also  instituted  that 


74        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

wiped  out  the  ancient  abuses  by  which  private 
individuals  could  control  and  compromise  crim- 
inal prosecutions,  and  thus  extort  blackmail. 
Any  authority  of  the  executive  branch  to  con- 
trol the  action  of  the  courts,  a  right  that  had 
always  obtained  in  the  Islands  with  the  Span- 
iards, was  rigorously  forbidden.  A  justice  and 
an  auxiliary  justice  of  the  peace  was  appointed 
in  each  municipality,  while  municipal  courts 
were  instituted  in  Manila.  The  Archipelago 
was  divided  into  fifteen  judicial  districts,  in 
each  of  which  there  was  a  court  of  the  first 
instance,  with  one  judge  assigned  thereto,  ex- 
cept that  in  Manila,  because  of  congestion  of 
business,  there  were  four  judges  and  as  many 
courts.  There  were  extra  judges  to  preside  in 
emergency.  As  early  as  1904,  a  third  of  all 
the  judges  were  natives.  There  was  direct 
appeal  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Islands,  a 
body  composed  of  seven  members,  three  of 
whom  were  natives.  Appeal  from  this  could 
be  had  directly  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  in  all  matters  in  which  the  Con- 
stitution or  the  privileges  or  the  rights  of  the 
United  States  were  involved,  or  in  cases  in 
which  the  amount  in  controversy  exceeded 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  or  in  which  the 
title  to  or  possession  of  real  estate  above  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars  was  involved. 

We  set  up  a  court  of  customs  appeals,  con- 


WE  BEGIN  75 

sisting  of  the  secretary  of  finance  and  justice, 
who  presides,  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
and  a  third  member  appointed  by  the  governor, 
with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Commission. 

We  set  up  a  court  of  land  registration  com- 
posed of  two  judges  with  jurisdiction  through- 
out the  entire  Islands.  It  was  also  a  court  of 
record.  Registrars  of  deeds  were  appointed 
in  each  province  and  for  Manila.  From  them 
and  from  the  court  of  land  registration,  appeals 
could  be  made  to  the  local  court  of  first  instance, 
and  from  these  last  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
Islands  and  then  to  that  at  Washington. 

There  was  appointed  an  attorney-general, 
with  assistants,  and  a  solicitor-general  with 
such  duties  as  are  performed  by  these  officials 
in  the  United  States.  The  former  was  an 
American,  the  latter  a  Filipino.  Half  the 
assistants  were  natives,  half  Americans. 

The  local  prosecuting  officials,  corresponding 
to  our  district  attorneys,  attached  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  thirty-four  provinces,  were  all 
natives. 

Civil  service  was  attended  to  at  the  very  out- 
set. Promotion  or  entrance  to  any  clerical  posi- 
tion in  the  Islands  was  based  solely  upon  com- 
petitive examinations,  except  that  preference 
was  given,  first  to  natives  and  then  to  honorably 
discharged  soldiers,  sailors,  or  marines  of  the 
United  States. 


^G        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

In  order  that  the  institution  of  this  drastic 
measure  might  not  work  inextricable  confusion 
and  hardship  among  the  officers  and  enlisted 
men  who  had  been  detailed  for  these  very  duties, 
it  was  provided  that  they  could  continue  in 
such  positions  when  mustered  out  upon  passing 
special  tests  of  fitness.  The  civil  service  board 
could  also  continue  in  office  the  existing  civil 
employees  if  they  were  competent  to  pass  the 
examinations.  In  this  manner  the  incompetents 
were  debarred,  and  only  those  of  character  and 
fitness  permitted  to  remain. 

In  the  provincial  and  municipal  governments, 
where  a  knowledge  of  English  was  not  essential, 
the  Filipinos  had  little  difficulty  in  filling  prac- 
tically every  position. 

As  an  incentive  to  encourage  Americans  to 
enter  this  Oriental  service,  examinations  for 
it  were  opened  throughout  the  United  States 
under  the  United  States  Civil  Service  Com- 
mission, and  it  was  provided  early  in  1903  by 
,an  act  of  Congress  that  officers  or  employees 
who  had  served  in  a  competitive  position  in 
the  Philippine  civil  service  for  three  or  more 
years  could  by  application  be  transferred  to  sim- 
ilar positions  in  the  United  States.  Thus  was 
provision  early  made  for  recuperation  of  all  who 
might  go  out  there  and  find  the  climate  too 
onerous.  It  yet  remains  for  the  United  States 
to  adopt  so  general  a  civil  service  law  as  that 


WE  BEGIN  ^^ 

which  obtains  in  these  island  possessions,  where 
from  the  very  first  there  has  never  been  a  sug- 
gestion of  any  spoils  system.  England  only 
adopted  civil  service  after  her  representatives 
had  instituted  it  in  India  and  seen  its  advan- 
tages. For  the  workings  of  a  complete  sys- 
tem, we  shall  have  to  adopt  the  law  of  the 
Philippines. 

As  a  final  aid  to  the  Islands,  their  govern- 
ment was  authorized  to  exercise  several  powers 
of  sovereignty  which  had  hitherto  never  been 
conferred  upon  any  of  our  States  or  territories 
or  other  possessions.  For  example.  Congress 
conveyed  to  the  Philippine  government  all  the 
public  property  of  the  Archipelago  which  we 
acquired  from  Spain,  including  public  buildings, 
streets,  parks,  roads,  the  submerged  soil  of  the 
coast,  the  beds  of  streams,  the  mineral  wealth, 
the  immense  tropical  forests  filled  with  precious 
timber  as  valuable  as  any.  Congress  also  au- 
thorized the  Philippine  government  to  issue  its 
own  currency.  It  was  authorized  to  direct 
and  control  its  own  postal  service.  It  was  al- 
lowed to  levy  tariffs  upon  goods  entering  island 
ports  consigned  from  American  ports,  and  this 
in  time  of  peace. 

Before  we  had  been  at  work  with  a  civil  gov- 
ernment quite  two  years,  we  were  able  to  make 
the  following  showing  of  our  intention  to  put 
the    Filipinos    into    their    own    governmental 


78        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

machine  just  as  rapidly  as  they  proved  fit  for 
the  task: 

Table  Showing  Number  of  Filipinos  and  Americans 
Employed  under  the  Government  of  the  Philippine 
Islands  in  1903 


Members  of  the  Philippine  Commission 
Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court 
Judges  of  the  court  of  first  instance 
Judges  of  the  court  of  customs  appeals 
Judges  of  the  court  of  land  registration 
Justices  of  the  peace  and  auxiliary  jus- 
tices of  the  peace 
Civil  service  of  the  general  government 
Governors  of  provinces 
Other  provincial  officials 
Municipal  presidents  (rfiayors) 
Municipal  coikicilors 
Municipal  secretaries-treasurers 
Total 

Municipal  school-teachers 
English  teachers 
Total 

Municipal  police 
Philippines  constabulary 
Total 


Americans 


s 

4 

16 

I 

I 


h777 
8 

86 


1,898 


1,000 


1,000 


-141 


345 


Filipinos 


3 
3 
7 
I 

I 

1,708 
2,697 

32 
238 
982 

8,159 
2,906 


16,737 


3,500 


3,500 


10,000 
7,000 


17,000 


This  table  does  not  include  the  Philippine 
Scouts,  which  were  a  part  of  the  military  estab- 
lishment of  the  United  States,  the  commissioned 
ofl^icers  of  which  were  Americans,  and  the  non- 


WE  BEGIN  79 

commissioned  officers  and  other  enlisted  force, 
of  which  five  thousand  were  Filipinos  ;  nor  does 
it  include  the  large  number  of  unskilled  em- 
ployees of  the  Philippine  government,  all  of 
whom  were  Filipinos,  employed  in  such  places 
as  the  street-cleaning  department  of  the  city  of 
Manila,  the  work  of  the  Benguet  road,  the  office 
of  the  insular  purchasing  agent,  the  board  of 
health,  etc. 

That  is,  there  were  40,480  employees  of  the 
Philippine  government,  —  37,237  natives  and 
3243  Americans. 

The  United  States  Congress  examined  each  of 
the  statutes  and  enactments  of  the  Philippine 
Commission  by  which  the  governmental  ma- 
chine here  described  was  set  in  motion,  and  con- 
firmed them  all ;  and,  by  special  act  passed  in 
1902,  promised  the  Filipinos  that  two  years 
after  the  completion  of  a  general  census,  they 
should  have  an  election  by  which  to  choose 
delegates  to  a  popular  assembly  conformable  to 
our  lower  house  of  Congress. 

By  the  time  Mr.  Taft  was  ready  to  leave  the 
Islands,  in  January,  1904,  we  had  completed 
the  installation  of  a  stable,  considerate,  rep- 
resentative  government. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE 

General  Otis  opens  schools  eighteen  days  after  our 
occupation  begins  —  Profound  effect  of  this  upon 
natives  —  Teaching  of  English  a  reversal  of 
Spain's  policy  —  A  thousand  teachers  come  from 
America  —  Why  English  was  made  only  medium 
of  education  —  Sacrifices  and  services  of  early 
American  instructors  —  Statistics  of  educational 
transformation  —  The  native  teacher  —  Each  pu- 
pil given  manual  training  —  Filipinos  yet  desirous 
of  only  primary  education  —  Lack  of  funds  — 
Remarkable  influence  of  introduction  of  athletic 
sports. 

We  have  already  seen  that  the  schools  in  the 
Islands  during  the  Spanish  regime  were  of 
little  practical  value,  and  that  it  was  a  deliber- 
ate policy  of  the  friars  to  use  such  as  were  there 
in  a  manner  to  deter  the  acquisition  of  real 
education  rather  than  to  promote  it. 

Within  two  weeks  of  the  capitulation  of 
Manila  to  our  military  forces,  General  Otis 
personally  had  selected  and  ordered  modern 
text-books  as  the  first  step  in  opening  schools 
in  the  Islands.  Eighteen  days  after  Manila 
fell,   seven   schools   were    opened    there   under 

80 


THE  LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    8i 

the  direction  of  one  of  our  army  chaplains, 
although  it  was  months  before  we  knew  the 
Philippines  were  to  be  transferred  to  us. 

These  acts  had  much  effect  upon  the  natives, 
who  were  wondering  what  sort  of  people  we 
were.  Non-commissioned  officers  of  the  army 
were  assigned  as  school-teachers,  and  the  teach- 
ing of  English  especially  advanced.  This  pro- 
duced a  profound  sensation.  Word  of  it  spread 
with  great  rapidity,  for  it  portended  a  revolu- 
tion, if  the  Americans  were  to  retain  the  Islands. 
It  meant  that  the  great  mass  of  the  common 
people  were  to  be  taught  the  language  of  their 
rulers,  a  complete  overturn  of  anything  the 
Filipinos  had  ever  known.  That  would  enable 
the  mass  of  the  tribes,  in  time,  to  read  news- 
papers and  books  and  laws.  It  would  enable 
them  to  learn  everything  that  the  ruling  class 
had  acquired ;  and  as  the  natives  believed  that 
the  rich  had  become  so  by  superior  knowledge, 
the  Filipino  seemed  almost  at  the  gates  of  the 
Promised  Land. 

The  Spanish  attitude  toward  this  Innovation 
was  typical  of  that  of  some  other  nations  which 
had  Far  Eastern  colonies.  General  Otis  was  in- 
formed that  an  attempt  to  introduce  universal 
education  was  not  only  sure  to  end  In  armed 
uprisings,  but  was  bound  to  fail,  for  the  natives 
would  refuse  to  attend  schools  that  were  not 
under  the   charge  of  the   clergy. 


82        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

But  we  went  ahead  just  the  same,  and  we 
continued  to  go  ahead,  even  more  rapidly 
when  Aguinaldo  attacked  us  in  February, 
1899.  Two  months  after  that  event,  we  had 
an  army  officer,  a  Yale  graduate,  as  superin- 
tendent of  the  Manila  schools,  of  which  there 
were  then  thirty-nine  in  active  operation.  He 
knew  his  work  thoroughly,  and  it  took  but 
little  time  to  see  that  the  people,  instead  of 
(refusing  to  send  their  children  to  secular  schools, 
greatly  preferred  them ;  thus,  although  we  were 
in  the  very  hottest  of  the  insurrection,  our 
army  had  about  a  thousand  schools  crowded 
with  pupils  long  before  the  civil  government 
took  over  the  army's  task  in  June,  1901.  By 
the  first  of  the  preceding  September,  General 
Otis  had  expended  more  than  twice  as  much 
for  text-books  and  supplies  as  Spain  spent  for 
all  school  charges  of  every  nature  during  some 
entire  years  just  preceding  1898  in  all  the 
Islands  outside  of  Manila. 

In  the  late  summer  of  1900,  Fred.  W.  Atkin- 
son, one  of  the  most  renowned  educational 
experts  in  the  United  States,  landed  in  the 
Islands  with  the  appointment  of  general  super- 
intendent of  public  instruction,  with  no  direc- 
tions except  to  secure  progress.  An  organizer 
of  the  first  class,  he  had  the  Commission  pass 
an  organic  act  upon  January  21,  1901,  that  laid 
a  broad  foundation  for  a  thoroughly  modern 


THE  LITTLE   RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    83 

system  of  schooling  in  every  corner  of  the 
Archipelago.  The  responsibilities  resting  upon 
the  superintendent  were  very  grave.  He  was 
given  carte  blanche  as  to  when  and  where  he 
would  establish  schools.  He  could  appoint 
all  assistants,  all  teachers,  prescribe  their  duties, 
the  curricula  they  should  teach,  and  fix  their 
salaries  within  certain  broad  limitations.  In  a 
word,  the  task  was  unique,  for  it  was  to  estab- 
lish a  complete  system  of  public  instruction 
among  more  than  seven  million  people  who 
never  up  to  that  time  had  had  any  system 
at  all.  It  was  a  great  opportunity,  and  the 
last  decade  has  shown  that  the  right  man  was 
chosen  to  do  the  work. 

One  of  the  first  big  things  done  was  to  send 
to  the  United  States  for  a  thousand  teachers, 
who  had  to  meet  a  high  standard  of  require- 
ment. In  1901  they  came  over  in  small  num- 
bers up  to  August,  when  six  hundred  arrived 
in  one  transport.  In  twenty  days  they  were 
on  their  way  to  their  new  work,  and  from  that 
time  English  became  the  only  medium  of  in- 
struction. For  this  regulation,  which  has  been 
warmly  criticized,  there  were  several  reasons, 
all  of  which  are  now  so  buttressed  by  later 
events  that  probably  nobody  is  to  be  found  who 
would  have  it  altered.  First,  English,  more 
than  any  other  language,  is  that  of  commerce 
in  the  Far  East,  and  its  use  is  becoming  more 


84        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

general  with  each  day.  That  it  is  bound  to  be 
the  universal  tongue  of  that  part  of  the  world 
cannot  longer  be  disputed.  To  those  who  have 
felt  that  Spanish  should  have  been  continued, 
the  response  is  that  there  was  no  Spanish  that 
could  cause  serious  consideration,  among  the 
mass  of  people,  as  we  have  already  set  forth. 
Then  it  was  evident  that  it  would  be  a  number 
of  years  before  we  could  permit  these  people 
to  try  to  govern  themselves,  which  meant  that 
English  was  for  a  long  time  to  be  the  language 
of  the  official  world  of  the  Islands,  both  written 
and  oral,  hence  the  language  by  which  official 
employment  and  favor  could  be  procured. 
The  Islands  as  a  whole  not  only  had  no  tongue, 
but,  what  was  worse,  had  many  entirely  diiferent 
dialects.  It  was  necessary  therefore  that  they 
should  have  some  common  language  if  they 
ever  were  to  become  a  homogeneous  people ; 
and  in  view  of  the  facts  just  presented,  English 
was  the  best  language  for  them,  and  the  eager- 
ness with  which  they  seized  the  opportunity 
to  acquire  it  is  further  evidence  of  the  wisdom 
and  correctness  of  this  position. 

The  sacrifices  incurred  by  very  many  of  these 
pioneer  teachers  were  tremendous.  That  more 
did  not  meet  a  violent  end  is  matter  of  wonder- 
ment. But  they  came  to  give  and  not  to  take, 
and  that  was  their  chief  shield.  As  a  rule,  the 
Spanish  schoolhouse  was  not  a  schoolhouse  at 


THE   LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE     85 

all ;  It  was  the  home  of  the  teacher,  who  taught 
in  one  of  his  rooms.  Frequently  there  were 
no  seats  or  benches  or  other  furniture.  If 
there  was  a  real  schoolhouse,  it  was  usually  a 
miserable  shack  of  bamboo  and  nlpa,  generally 
without  a  floor  and  with  vile  surroundings, 
if  it  had  been  in  use.  Our  teachers  went  to 
work  and  built  schoolhouses,  often  with  their 
own  hands,  made  the  benches,  and  taught  the 
most  remarkable  conglomeration  of  pupils  for 
months  at  a  time  without  books,  slates,  or  maps. 
Some  established  their  schools  under  spreading 
trees.  The  friars  were  inimical,  and  against 
the  invader  all  the  influence  of  the  church  was 
bent,  until  in  many  localities  natives  would 
not  send  their  children  to  the  new  school- 
teacher. Then  it  was  the  task,  perhaps,  of  a 
slip  of  an  American  girl  —  the  only  white  face 
in  miles  among  thousands  of  Malays  —  to  go 
from  house  to  house  and  by  her  personal  force 
overcome  this  prejudice.  Instances  were  com- 
mon in  which  the  male  teacher  joined  the  local 
peasants  in  ridding  the  district  of  ladrones,  the 
native  term  for  gentlemen-of-the-road.  He 
often  ended  the  oppression  of  the  wealthy  by  a 
sharp  American  demand  for  justice.  He  urged 
the  repair  of  the  roads,  and,  in  a  word,  in  all 
except  matters  of  religion,  he  enlarged  in  every 
community  in  which  he  was  set  down,  if  he 
were  worthy  of  the  responsibility,  into  the  pre- 


86        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

dominating  place  formerly  filled  by  the  Spanish 
friar.  He  easily  became  the  most  important 
local  force  in  furthering  an  understanding  of  our 
civilization. 

What  manual  labor  these  teachers  did  — 
and  they  did  it  in  good  measure  —  probably 
excited  more  comment  than  any  other  act. 
The  Spaniard,  and  often  the  American,  regards 
manual  labor  as  a  mark  of  degradation,  as  a 
sure  evidence  that  the  man  has  not  the  quali- 
ties to  earn  more  with  his  head  than  with  his 
hands.  The  natives  took  their  cue  from  their 
rulers,  whom  they  believed  to  be  a  superior 
race  of  beings ;  and  no  Spanish  official  or  any 
other  Spaniard,  if  he  could  avoid  it,  ever  did 
any  manual  labor  where  he  could  be  seen  by  a 
native.  So  far  had  the  principle  become  fas- 
tened into  the  national  life  of  these  ignorant 
peoples,  that  they  believed  anything  that  would 
soil  their  linen  or  entail  perspiration  or  rapid 
movement  was  unworthy  of  civilized  beings. 
As  a  result,  the  Filipino  boys  and  girls  grew  up 
without  the  mental  and  bodily  stimulus  of 
emulation  by  any  sort  of  games.  The  most 
violent  exercise  of  all  their  youthful  days  was 
to  march  solemnly  in  slow-moving  religious 
processions  or  to  walk  about  taking  the  evening 
air. 

The  natives  argued  in  their  simple  way, 
which  was  not  really  argument  at  all,  but  imi- 


THE  LITTLE   RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    87 

tatlon,  that  the  Spaniard  was  a  superior  being 
who  never  did  manual  labor.  Then,  if  a  native 
was  to  hope  to  become  a  superior  being,  he 
must  not  do  manual  labor. 

But  here  suddenly  came  in  a  new  race  which 
was  plainly  superior  to  the  Spaniard,  for  the 
American  had  whipped  him,  and  these  ultra- 
superior  visitors,  the  new  rulers,  worked  with 
their  hands,  dug  in  the  garden,  just  like  the  com- 
mon laborer.  They  had  games  that  made  them 
perspire  until  their  clothing  was  rumpled  and 
they  were  wet  to  the  skin. 

More  than  this,  these  Americans  taught 
equality,  for  they  practiced  it.  In  the  Spanish 
schools  the  poor  often  received  little  or  none 
of  the  attention  of  the  instructor,  because  that 
personage  received  especial  favors  or  pay  from 
rich  parents.  The  cultivated  man  among  the 
Filipinos  frequently  has  the  greatest  contempt 
for  those  who  are  condemned  to  the  ignorance 
from  which  he  has  escaped.  He  will  make  the 
most  flowery  speeches  about  the  advancement 
of  his  countrymen,  but  when  approached  upon 
the  wisdom  of  attempting  their  enlightenment, 
he  is  often  found  to  be  an  active  opponent  of 
such  a  revolutionary  proposal.  The  reason  is 
not  far  to  seek.  It  has  already  been  stated. 
One  superintendent  of  all  the  schools  in  the 
Islands  has  written  over  his  signature  that :  "In 
the  majority  of  murders  committed  during  the 


88        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

last  five  years,  the  murderers,  ignorant  and 
debased  tools,  acted  from  no  other  motive  than 
that  they  were  told  by  those  to  whom  they 
were  economically  bound  and  on  whom  they 
were  dependent,  that  they  must  go  and  kill 
such  and  such  men."  The  already  educated 
Filipino  knows  he  will  lose  his  great  power  over 
the  ignorant  just  in  proportion  as  they  approach 
his  level  of  learning. 

Of  course  there  were  failures,  many  of  them, 
in  these  early  days  when  there  was  haste  in 
selection  and  imperfect  knowledge  of  conditions 
actually  to  be  met.  Then  the  change  from 
many  years  in  the  temperate  zone  to  a  sudden 
protracted  stay  in  the  tropics  was  apt  to  be 
very  pronounced  in  its  results  upon  character 
and  disposition.  The  mind  and  better  instincts 
often  became  blunted  by  the  continuous  high 
temperature,  which  wickedly  enough  is  apt  to 
increase  natural  tendencies  in  the  less  worthy 
side  of  us  all.  The  utter  isolation  into  which 
many  of  these  teachers  were  relegated  became 
a  bitter  foe,  and  the  efi'ects  of  the  resultant 
homesickness  and  the  lonesomeness  upon  health 
and  habit  were  sometimes  lasting  and  far-reach- 
ing. If  a  man  went  to  pieces  morally,  as  he 
too  often  did,  his  failure  and  his  example  re- 
tarded an  understanding  of  what  we  were  at- 
tempting to  accomplish. 

But  these  unfavorable  factors  were  the  ex- 


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THE  LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    89 

ceptlon,  decidedly  so,  be  it  recollected ;  and 
we  may  not  pay  too  high  praise  to  the  American 
teachers  as  a  class,  both  men  and  women. 

To  consider  the  result  more  in  detail,  we  find 
that  there  were  probably  not  exceeding  750 
schoolhouses  in  the  Archipelago  when  we  went 
there.  Except  in  the  largest  towns,  they  were 
of  the  rude  character  just  described.  Our 
policy  now  is  to  build  schoolhouses  of  reenforced 
concrete  only,  that  are  far  superior  to  the  usual 
rural  schoolhouse  in  the  United  States.  More 
than  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  them  are  com- 
pleted or  in  process  of  building,  and  they  are 
rapidly  replacing  the  three  thousand  other  less 
permanent  buildings  which  we  have  put  up  in 
the  last  ten  years. 

In  1898  there  were  nineteen  hundred  teachers, 
under  Spain.  There  are  now  five  times  as 
many,  9086  to  be  exact.  In  1898  there  was  one 
teacher  to  each  four  thousand  people.  There 
is  now  one  to  each  844.  There  were  less  than 
two  thousand  so-called  schools  under  Spain. 
There  are  now  forty-six  hundred  that  are  real 
schools  with  real  teachers  and  a  real  educational 
curriculum.  Under  Spain  there  was  a  total  en- 
rollment of  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
pupils.  In  191 1  it  had  risen  to  six  hundred 
and  ten  thousand.  Spain  spent  various  sums  of 
money  for  school  expenses,  sometimes  as  low  as 
sixty-two  thousand  dollars  in  one  year  early  in 


90        THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  decade  preceding  our  coming,  and  as  high  as 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  another  at  a 
later  period.  Probably  the  average  founded  upon 
these  two  picked  at  random  is  about  correct. 
If  this  be  so,  we  may  say  that  just  prior  to  our 
occupation  Spain  was  accustomed  to  spend 
annually  upon  the  schools  of  the  Islands  one 
hundred  and  thirty  thousand  dollars. 

Last  year  there  was  devoted  to  this  purpose 
by  the  Insular  Government  itself  more  than 
thirteen  times  as  much ;  and  more  than  ten  times 
as  much  was  spent  by  the  local  governments ; 
and  the  continuance  of  this  record  appears  to  be 
assured.  The  exact  figures  for  191 1  were  ^i,- 
765,958  by  the  central  government  and  ^1,362,- 
873  by  the  various  local  administrations,  or 
$3,128,831  in  all,  nearly  twenty-five  times  what 
we  know  Spain  to  have  been  spending  for  similar 
purpose. 

In  accordance  with  our  announced  policy  of 
gradually  replacing  Americans  in  the  service 
with  natives,  the  American  school-teachers  are 
now  but  683,  so  that  we  have  withdrawn  nearly 
one  third  of  the  highest  number  ever  at  work 
there,  which  was  926  in  May,  1902.  Their 
salaries  range  from  two  thousand  dollars  to 
six  hundred  dollars,  averaging  slightly  in  excess 
of  eleven  hundred  dollars.  The  native  in- 
structors average  about  two  hundred  dollars 
per  annum. 


THE  LITTLE  RED  SCHOOLHOUSE    91 

The  encouragement  by  every  reasonable 
means  to  add  to  the  number  of  native  teachers 
has  been  a  governmental  policy,  especially  be- 
cause it  was  realized  that  the  best  persons  in 
the  world  to  civilize  or  instruct  the  natives 
were  their  own  kind. 

It  was  therefore  from  the  outset  a  rule  of  the 
American  teachers  to  give  one  hour  daily  to 
teaching  Filipino  instructors  in  English  and  in 
modern  methods  of  school  direction.  It  was 
always  held  before  the  native  teachers  that 
promotion,  with  better  salaries,  was  entirely 
dependent  upon  their  efficiency;  and  this  made 
them  eager  to  progress  and  attract  favorable 
attention  from  their  superiors.  They  have  all 
along  been  coming  from  better  and  better  fam- 
ilies, until  now  probably  no  young  woman 
native  of  the  Islands,  no  matter  how  much 
money  her  parents  possess  or  how  much  Spanish 
blood  runs  through  her  veins,  would  consider 
the  teaching  service  beneath  her  dignity.  Their 
influence  in  the  community  is  largely  enhanced 
by  their  knowledge  of  English,  and  American 
ways  of  doing  things.  It  is  they  who  are  sought 
out  by  visiting  officials  for  intelligent  repre- 
sentation of  local  conditions.  It  is  they  who 
act  as  interpreters  in  the  courts  and  for  the 
presidents.  They  have  taken  on  a  new  dig- 
nity and  are  rising  rapidly  to  meet  its  require- 
ments   and    responsibilities. 


92        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

What  are  known  In  the  United  States  as 
teachers'  institutes,  providing  courses  for 
teachers  during  the  long  vacation,  which  in  the 
Islands  extends  from  the  middle  of  March  to  the 
middle  of  June,  were  established  from  the  be- 
ginning. Practically  all  of  the  native  teachers, 
now  more  than  eight  thousand,  attend  lectures 
which  are  given  by  the  best  instructors  obtain- 
able, and  which  are  fully  equal  to  those  we  have 
in  the  United  States.  These  bodies  usually 
meet  in  their  respective  provincial  capitals. 

But  it  is  to  the  Philippine  Normal  School, 
at  Manila,  the  successor  of  the  Insular  Normal 
School  which  we  organized  with  the  rest  of  our 
system  in  the  early  days,  that  the  Filipinos  of 
both  sexes  look  for  the  teachers'  training ;  and 
here  are  taught  in  the  most  approved  methods 
those  branches  that  the  native  most  needs. 
About  a  hundred  needy  students  who  have  al- 
ready taught  two  years  in  the  Islands  are  sup- 
ported at  public  expense  in  return  for  later 
services  equivalent  to  the  term  of  their  scholar- 
ships. Each  of  them  in  addition  to  his  normal 
and  academic  subjects  is  taught  some  branch 
of  manual  training.  Every  boy  and  girl  in 
every  primary  school  in  the  Philippines  spends 
a  considerable  proportion  of  each  day  in  manual 
work.  He  puts  in  this  time  upon  the  manufac- 
ture of  some  article  of  real  value,  either  for  use 
in   his  own  home  or  for  sale.    There  are  no 


THE  LITTLE   RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    93 

halfway  accomplishments  tolerated.  The  work 
must  be  done  well  or  the  pupil  is  not  relieved 
from  the  task.  There  are  gardens  beside  the 
schoolhouse,  and  there  a  boy  may  raise  vege- 
tables either  for  sale  or  for  his  home.  Indoors 
he  may  make  a  hat,  or  a  school  desk.  The  girl 
may  make  a  piece  of  lace,  or  may  embroider  a 
handkerchief,  which  she  can  do  as  well  as  any 
other  little  woman  in  all  the  world,  and  which 
will  find  its  way  into  the  lace  markets  of  the 
Continent  or  the  United  States.  In  hand  weav- 
ing, last  year,  two  hundred  and  forty-two  thou- 
sand pupils  were  engaged.  In  loom  weaving  of 
mats,  cloths,  etc.,  there  were  2178.  In  garden- 
ing there  were  one  hundred  and  two  thousand. 
In  the  making  of  garments  by  sewing,  in  lace 
work,  in  embroidery,  etc.,  there  were  sixty-eight 
thousand.  In  iron  and  wood  work  there  were 
770.  One  hundred  and  thirty-six  thousand 
were  engaged  in  the  making  of  pottery,  in  the 
study  of  raising  poultry,  and  in  other  useful 
work  for  which  the  student  could  secure  money. 
There  were  eight  large  school  farms,  on  which 
more  than  seven  hundred  students  gave  their 
time  to  farming  by  the  most  modern  and  enlight- 
ened methods.  There  were  six  trade  schools, 
furnishing  the  best  instruction  to  850  advanced 
pupils  in  drawing,  in  woodwork,  ironwork,  and 
the  repair  thereof.  There  was  a  modern  college 
of  agriculture  at  Los  Baiios,  near  Manila.     There 


94        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

was  a  school  of  commerce  with  a  four-year  course 
that  never  was  able  to  graduate  a  pupil,  because 
all  became  competent,  before  the  course  was 
completed,  to  secure  good  positions  that  would 
pay  so  well  that  they  could  not  resist  the  temp- 
tation to  accept  them. 

But  undoubtedly  one  of  the  greatest  boons 
has  been  the  teaching  of  housekeeping  and 
household  arts  to  the  native  girls  in  all  higher 
primary  and  all  intermediate  grades.  Here 
each  student  learns  house  sanitation,  plain 
cooking,  and  simple  sewing,  and  at  once  becomes 
in  all  the  neighborhood  of  her  little  home  an 
oracle  and  a  revolutionary  force  of  the  first 
magnitude.  Every  barefooted  woman  in  the 
barrio,  as  little  hamlets  are  called,  who  has  no 
representative  of  her  own  family  to  receive 
these  lessons,  ambles  around  to  sit  on  her  heels 
in  the  shack  of  the  neighbor  whose  daughter 
has  that  opportunity,  and  watches  the  intro- 
duction of  each  new  idea  that  the  American 
"schoolmarm"  has  imparted.  These  ideas  be- 
come the  gossip  of  the  entire  community,  and  a 
spirit  of  emulation  stirs  the  sluggish  blood  in 
every  housewife. 

I  have  seen  the  same  results  in  the  Feud 
Country  in  the  mountains  of  Tennessee  and 
Kentucky.  The  return  to  her  native  home  of 
one  little  girl,  who  had  been  at  school  down  in 
the  Blue  Grass  Country  a  year  or  so,  left  its 


THE  LITTLE  RED  SCHOOLHOUSE    95 

marked  Impress  in  every  house  in  that  portion 
of  the  mountains.  Rugs  began  to  appear  on 
bare  floors.  Flowers  sprang  up  beside  every 
door.  Toilet  conveniences,  while  crude,  still 
showed  great  advance.  Bared  feet  became 
covered,  and  the  woman  who  used  to  smoke 
a  corncob  threw  It  away.  She  tidied  up  her 
dress  with  each  evening.  The  tablecloth  came 
in,  and  the  chickens  were  fed  outside,  instead 
of  waiting  beneath  the  dining  table  as  formerly. 
All  of  these  indications  you  may  see  to-day  in 
the  Philippines  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

The  night  schools  were  opened  in  Manila  in 
September,  1900,  and  their  immediate  crowd- 
ing suggested  that  here  was  an  important  way 
of  reaching  the  people  at  large  who  could  not 
attend  the  regular  schools  in  the  daytime. 
Within  three  months  they  had  an  enrollment  of 
more  than  nineteen  hundred.  Clerks,  mer- 
chants, newspaper  reporters,  janitors,  laborers, 
and  barbers  —  every  kind  of  a  wage-earner  in 
the  city — crowded  the  rooms,  so  that  many  had 
to  be  turned  away.  In  another  year  a  night 
school  was  opened  in  every  town,  with  the 
rarest  exception,  in  which  there  was  an  American 
teacher.  Some  of  these  taught  higher  arith- 
metic, geography,  history,  bookkeeping,  stenog- 
raphy, typewriting,  and  telegraphy.  In  these 
advanced  courses  Filipinos  are  now  being  pre- 
pared for  their  civil  service  examination  while 


96        THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

they  are  doing  their  regular  work  in  the  day 
schools. 

In  the  provincial  night  schools,  the  learning 
of  English  has  always  been  the  principal  object 
in  view.  Here  one  may  see  the  poorest  field 
laborer  and  the  president  of  the  barrio,  and  in 
several  cases  even  the  provincial  governor. 
The  average  age  of  the  night  pupils  through- 
out the  Islands  is  approximately  twenty-three 
years. 

In  1903,  102  native  students  were  brought  to 
the  United  States  to  be  educated  here  at  the 
expense  of  the  Filipino  government.  Since 
that  date,  forty-three  has  been  the  largest 
number  sent  on  a  similar  mission,  and  last  year 
there  was  but  one.  At  no  time  in  the  last  six 
years  has  the  number  exceeded  eight.  The 
scheme  as  at  first  conducted  can  hardly  be 
considered  an  unqualified  success,  but  with 
higher  requirements  in  candidates  it  is  expected 
that  the  plan  may  be  made  of  great  benefit. 
The  governor-general  may  appoint  with  or 
without  examination,  and  as  a  result  those 
who  first  came  were  often  unequal  to  what  was 
expected  of  them.  Upon  their  return  it  was  at 
once  evident  that  they  had  not  secured  much 
real  education.  In  many  instances  they  were 
shown  too  great  favoritism  in  the  institutions 
to  which  they  were  assigned,  had  as  a  matter  of 
fact  been  promoted  without  having  done  the 


5   4    O 

'  ,  5 


>  3   s  a 

.   T  1   '   5 


Present  Type  of  Smaller  Concrete  School  House. 


Present  Type  of  Larger  Concrete  School  House. 


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THE   LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    97 

work  that  would  justify  it,  and  actually  harmed 
our  work  in  the  Islands  by  what  they  had 
learned  or  thought  they  had  learned  of  our 
institutions.  The  truth  is,  that  trained  only 
in  the  Spanish  methods,  they  were  never  quali- 
fied to  enter  our  colleges,  although  received  with 
open  arms  by  them.  Later  appointees,  however, 
are  reversing  this  record,  and  have  in  some  in- 
stances won  extraordinary  marks. 

Speaking  of  the  Filipino  native  teachers  as  a 
whole,  they  have  as  yet  only  been  able  to  teach 
in  the  primary  and  intermediate  grades.  Of 
the  9086  native  teachers,  but  492  were  found 
competent  in  191 1  to  teach  students  who  had 
had  more  than  seven  years  of  schooling,  — 
four  years  in  primary  and  three  in  the  inter- 
mediate. In  1910  just  twenty-five  per  cent 
of  the  9086  native  teachers  had  themselves 
completed  the  primary  and  intermediate  schools. 
In  191 1  the  figure  increased  to  twenty-eight  per 
cent,  and  it  will  probably  be  more  favorable 
with  each  year  to  come,  as  the  emulation  for 
preferment  is  constantly  increasing. 

We  must  not  construe,  however,  this  rela- 
tively poor  education  of  the  Filipino  native 
teacher  as  any  reflection  upon  the  only  work 
in  which  he  may  be  said  to  be  engaged,  for 
education  in  the  Islands  is  yet  in  the  primary 
school,  as  figures  will  demonstrate,  viz. :  there 
are  now  4121    primary   schools,   with   582,115 


98        THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

pupils;  245  intermediate,  with  24,974  pupils; 
and  38  high  schools  (entered  after  seven  years 
of  schooling),  with  but  3404  scholars. 

In  the  primary  school  the  aim  is  to  teach  the 
student  to  understand,  read,  and  write  simple 
English,  to  give  him  a  sufficient  knowledge  of 
figures  so  that  he  can  later  protect  himself  in 
business,  and  to  provide  him  with  a  small 
fund  of  information  regarding  geography,  sani- 
tation, hygiene,  government,  and  standards  of 
correct  conduct.  In  addition,  the  pupil  is 
taught  sufficient  manual  training  to  enable 
him  to  be  a  better  laborer  than  those  who  have 
not  had  this  instruction.  A  perusaLof  the 
above  figures  will  show  that  onl}^  one  student 
in  thirty  pursues  his  education  after  completing 
the  primary  four  years'  course.  Indeed,  it  is  a 
further  fact  that  the  great  majority  of  the  pri- 
mary scholars  never  complete  their  four  years  in 
that  first  schoolroom.  The  figures  above  also 
show  that  about  one  in  every  two  hundred  in  the 
primary  school  will  enter  the  high  school.  And 
it  must  be  said  that  there  is  no  present  tendency 
observable  that  will  indicate  any  material  altera- 
tion in  those  proportions.^ 

Thus  it  is  that  we  are  endeavoring  to  give  the 
Filipino  in  the  first  four  years  of  his  schooling 
those  things  that  will  best  help  him  in  after  life, 
for  that  is  going  to  be  his  sole  educational  equip- 

1  Eleventh  Annual  Report  Director  Education,  p.  19. 


THE  LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    99 

ment  for  many  years,  unless  there  be  a  com- 
pulsory system  equivalent  to  our  own.     Such  a 
system  could  be  made  possible  if  there  were 
funds  sufficient.     But  there  are  not  funds  suffi- 
cient even  for  this  little  we  are  trying  to  do. 
Indeed,    there    is    not    nearly    enough    money 
adequately  to  pay  the  larger  part  of  the  native 
teacherSj^whiO  are  dependent  upon  the  salaries 
of  the  municipality  or  province  in  which  they 
are    employe^./  Eight   thousand   of   the    total 
native  teaching  force  of  9086  are  in  the  pay  of 
the    local    government    as    distinguished    from 
that  of  the  Insular  Government.     Their  average 
remuneration  is  ^9.25  gold  per  month.     In  three 
large   provinces   the   average   is   less    than    six 
dollars  per  month.     An  increase  of  even  ^2.50 
a  month  would  add  a  quarter  of  a  million  to  the 
expenses,  and  no  such  sum  can  be  found.     And 
in  the  face  of  this  showing,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
probably    not    one    town    in    the    Islands    has 
adequate  school  buildings  for  its  school  popula- 
tion.    In    Union     Province     alone,     in     191 1, 
more  than  four  thousand  pupils  were  refused 
admittance  to  the  primary  schools  because  there 
was  no  room  for  them.     So  eager  were  they 
for  work  that  those  who  did  obtain  entrance 
maintained  an  actual  daily  attendance  of  eighty- 
five  per  cent  of  the  total  enrollment  —  a  very 
remarkable  showing  in  any  community. 
The    Islands    can    now,    with    such    schools 


100      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

as  have  been  mentioned,  offer  to  about  a  third 
of  the  children  of  school  age  eleven  years  in  the 
public  schools.  From  these,  pupils  may  go  to 
the  University  of  the  Philippines  in  Manila, 
under  American  professors,  where  there  are 
courses  in  the  Liberal  Arts,  Medicine  and 
Surgery,  Agriculture,  Veterinary  Science,  Law, 
Engineering,  and  the  Fine  Arts.  There  are 
now  more  than  twelve  hundred  students  in 
attendance. 

A  glance  over  the  accomplishments  of  the 
decade  in  education,  as  stated  by  those  most 
prominent  in  its  direction,  will  be  apt  to  give 
the  introduction  of  athletics  to  the  Filipino 
boys  and  girls  the  leading  place  among  all  our 
civilizing  elements.  The  first  game  of  baseball 
that  the  islanders  ever  saw  was  between  teams 
of  our  soldiers  in  1898.  In  the  few  years  since 
that  time,  the  sport  has  become  ingrafted  into 
the  Filipino  taste  as  firmly  as  in  that  of  the 
American  schoolboy.  Many  of  the  school- 
houses  —  probably  five  hundred  —  in  the  Is- 
lands have  a  baseball  diamond  beside  them. 
And  let  no  American  suppose  that  the  game  has 
lost  by  its  long  journey  nor  think  that  we  can 
teach  them  about  its  finer  points.  Take  it  all 
in  all,  they  play  with  greater  spirit  than  our 
boys,  and  they  were  especially  jubilant  in  191 1 
because  their  best  team  outplayed  the  best  that 
the  American  schoolboys  could  present.     The 


THE  LITTLE  RED   SCHOOLHOUSE    loi 

increased  self-respect  and  manliness  shown  by 
all  who  engage  in  these  contests  is  very  notable ; 
and  the  hollow,  narrow,  thin,  flat  chest  that  was 
the  mark  of  the  more  civilized  Filipino  boys  is 
being  replaced  by  the  broader  torso  of  the  ath- 
lete. A  hundred  organized,  uniformed,  fully 
equipped  baseball  teams  in  a  province  is  not 
unusual,  and  the  provinces  now  compete  against 
each  other  for  the  championship  of  the  Islands. 
In  the  contest  for  this  distinction  in  191 1,  it 
took  over  twelve  hundred  games  between  482 
teams  to  decide  the  issue. 

But  it  is  not  alone  those  directly  on  the  field 
who  are  being  influenced.  The  entire  popula- 
tion has  developed  into  fans  and  rooters,  as  the 
terms  of  the  game  call  the  enthusiasts ;  and  no 
more  lively  audience  than  that  which  attends 
the  important  games  in  the  Islands  can  be 
found  upon  the  Polo  Grounds  in  New  York. 
The  partisans  are  intense  and  implacable,  and 
there  is  nothing  remaining  of  what  has  come 
to  be  known  as  the  Oriental  reserve  after  the 
umpire  has  deprived  the  pitcher  of  a  strike. 

The  language  of  the  bleachers  in  New  York 
and  in  Manila  is  quite  the  same,  for  the  Filipino 
was  given  no  epithets  In  his  native  tongues ;  and 
the  first  words  he  learned  from  us  were  ejacula- 
tions of  that  character,  which  he  employs  with 
astonishing  fluency  and  unction. 

General  athletic  associations  with  competi- 


102      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

tive  events  such  as  sprints,  jumps,  pole  vaults, 
and  all  the  list  of  our  own  scholastic  organiza- 
tions are  now  established  in  many  parts  of  the 
Islands,  and  they  compete  for  the  Island  cham- 
pionship in  Manila  each  winter. 

The  girls  have  taken  up  basket  ball  with  so 
much  enthusiasm  that  it  is  plain  the  sport  is 
to  be  a  feature  in  every  school.  In  short, 
athletics  have  so  crowded  in,  that  educational 
departments  have  had  to  take  charge  of  them 
just  as  in  the  United  States,  and  contests  are 
now  conducted  upon  a  uniform  basis  as  to 
eligibility  and  rules.  These  regulations  are 
issued  in  an  athletic  handbook  from  the  ofHce 
of  the  Director  of  Education. 

If  we  go  deep  enough,  we  will  undoubtedly 
find  that  the  great  eagerness  displayed  by  the 
Filipinos  for  knowledge  is  due  to  their  desire  to 
make  a  living  with  their  heads  instead  of  their 
hands.  They  probably  proceed  upon  the  theory 
that  the  former  is  easier  than  the  latter  and 
therefore  much  to  be  preferred.  Granted  that 
this  is  their  premise,  it  is  not  much  different 
from  the  idea  of  the  more  cilivized  peoples. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   FRIAR  LANDS 

One  of  the  most  Important  problems  in  the  Islands 

—  Friars  so  hated  that  all  had  to  fly  to  Manila  in 
1898  —  The   Pope  consents   to  their  withdrawal 

—  The  Insular  Government  pays  ^7,227,000 
gold  —  Impossibility  of  disposing  of  the  lands 
because  of  agitation  against  capital. 

As  the  Friar  Lands  have  constituted  one  of  the 
most  acute  problems  that  we  have  had  to  face 
in  the  Islands,  we  must  give  at  least  the  out- 
lines of  it. 

The  main  facts  are  that  there  were  some 
750  regular  parishes  in  the  Archipelago,  all  of 
which,  except  150,  were  administered  by  Span- 
ish monks  of  the  Dominican,  Augustlnian,  or 
Franciscan  Orders.  Natives  could  not  secure 
admission  to  these  Orders.  The  Augustlnians 
were  of  two  classes,  the  shod  and  the  unshod, 
the  latter  being  termed  Recoletos.  During  the 
outburst  of  hatred  against  these  priests  In  the 
turbulence  of  1 896-1 898,  they  all  fled  to  Manila, 
for  their  very  lives.  Forty  were  killed  and 
more  than  four  hundred  were  imprisoned,  in 

103 


104      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

which  state  they  continued  until  our  arms  be- 
came so  irresistible  that  the  natives  could  no 
longer  retain  their  control  of  the  jails  in  which 
these  holy  men  were  confined.  With  all  of  the 
minor  priests,  their  total  number  was  1124  at 
the  beginning  of  hostilities.  Before  we  had 
captured  Aguinaldo,  in  March,  1901,  but  472 
remained  in  the  Islands,  the  balance  having 
been  killed,  or  having  died,  returned  to  Spain, 
or  gone  to  China  or  to  South  America. 

As  soon  as  we  had  established  authority  in  the 
former  parishes  of  these  472  priests,  a  fierce 
discussion  arose  as  to  whether  or  not  they 
should  be  permitted  to  return  to  their  former 
stations.  It  was  perfectly  evident  to  our  rep- 
resentatives that  if  they  did  go  back  many 
would  be  assassinated;  and  in  the  end,  as  their 
return  could  only  be  effected  by  us,  we  should 
become  the  unwilling  heirs  of  that  hatred  of  the 
priests.  If  the  priests  did  not  return  to  their 
parishes,  they  certainly  would  lose  their  im- 
mense properties,  which  constituted  some  of 
the  best  lands  in  the  Islands,  amounting  in  all 
to  403,713  acres. ^  These  were  in  the  main 
rented  to  thousands  of  people  who  refused  to 
pay  anything  for  them  as  soon  as  they  drove 

*  The  Franciscans  were  unable,  because  of  their  rules,  to  pos- 
sess any  property,  and  they  therefore  had  no  agricultural  lands 
and  no  real  estate  except  dwellings  for  members,  two  monasteries, 
and  two  infirmaries. 


THE   FRIAR  LANDS  105 

the  friars  into  Manila.  The  Orders  applied 
to  our  government  to  send  an  armed  force  to 
collect  the  rents  or  to  eject  the  delinquent 
tenants.  The  United  States  of  America  have 
never  done  things  in  that  fashion,  and  the 
Orders  were  told  that  they  could  obtain  relief 
only  through  the  courts,  where  they  would 
stand  just  as  any  other  party  seeking  their  aid. 

That  intensified  the  situation,  for  by  their 
rules  the  friars  were  forbidden  to  sue  in  a  court  of 
law.  Under  Spain,  when  they  wanted  things  of 
this  character  done,  all  they  had  to  do  was  to 
notify  the  governor-general,  and  he  would  send 
troops  to  obtain  by  force  such  redress  as  they 
had  indicated. 

The  most  cursory  investigation  shows  that 
every  abuse  which  finally  led  to  the  two  rev- 
olutions of  1896  and  1898  was  charged  by  the 
natives  as  a  whole  to  the  friars.  If  we  had 
inflicted  the  same  priests  upon  the  people  who 
had  so  recently  driven  them  out,  the  natives 
at  large  would  have  been  sure  to  conclude  that 
a  friar  under  the  United  States  was  just  the 
same  as  a  friar  under  Spain.  All  the  informa- 
tion we  could  obtain  was  to  the  eff"ect  that  the 
adoption  of  such  a  course  would  lead  to  a 
recurrence  of  the  disorder  that  had  led  to  their 
previous  flight  to  the  capital  city.  In  eflPect, 
we  should  have  another  insurrection  upon  our 
hands. 


io6      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

Confronted  with  these  conditions,  we  took 
up  the  subject  with  the  Pope,  who  by  agree- 
ment with  us  in  December,  1899,  sent  the 
Archbishop  of  New  Orleans  as  an  apostolic 
delegate  to  the  Islands  to  endeavor  to  effect  an 
adjustment  of  the  difficulties.  He  became, 
however,  so  warm  an  adherent  to  the  friars' 
position  as  to  nullify  the  hope  that  he  could  be 
of  service  as  an  arbitrator.  He  joined  hands 
with  Nozaleda,  the  Archbishop  of  Manila,  and 
bitterly  opposed  the  efforts  of  the  native  clergy 
to  compel  the  expulsion  of  every  friar.  The 
controversy  became  so  acute  as  to  result  in  the 
imprisonment  for  two  months  of  the  chief 
clerical  exponent  of  the  native  position,  by  the 
priests  who  opposed  it,  and  nobody  can  say 
when  he  might  have  been  released,  had  not  his 
contentions  been  suddenly  upheld  by  Rome, 
whose  attitude  throughout  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding was  considerate  and  fair.  Governor 
Taft,  and  in  fact  all  of  the  Commission,  early 
became  convinced  that  the  only  way  to  get  the 
friars  out  was  to  buy  them  out;  and  when  he 
visited  the  United  States,  early  in  1902,  he  had 
little  difficulty  in  convincing  Congress  as  to 
the  wisdom  of  this  course.  The  act  of  that 
body  upon  July  i,  1902,  commonly  called  the 
*' Philippine  Government  Act,"  authorized  the 
necessary  issue  of  bonds  by  the  Insular  Govern- 
ment with  which  to  complete  the  transaction, 


THE  FRIAR  LANDS  107 

and  also  the  sale  of  such  tracts  as  were  acquired, 
the  proceeds  to  go  to  liquidating  the  bonds. 
Rome  at  once  assented  in  writing  to  the  propo- 
sition that  the  sale  of  such  lands  would  allay 
public  agitation  against  the  friars,  and  an- 
nounced the  appointment  of  a  new  delegate, 
who  proceeded  to  Manila  with  full  powers.  Gov- 
ernor Taft  replied  that  he  regretted  the  ap- 
pointment of  the  new  delegate,  and  proposed 
instead  that  the  disputed  questions  be  sub- 
mitted to  a  tribunal  of  five,  the  odd  member 
to  be  chosen  by  some  high,  disinterested  party. 
Rome  rejected  this,  and  then  Washington  ac- 
cepted the  proposal  of  the  new  delegate,  who 
proved  to  be  a  man  of  great  culture,  Monsignor 
Guidi.  In  six  months'  time  he  was  in  Manila, 
and  in  thirteen  months  he  and  the  representa- 
tives of  the  United  States  had  come  to  a  complete 
understanding,  which  was  embodied  in  written 
contract  and  soon  carried  out,  by  which  we 
acquired  the  four  hundred  thousand  acres  of 
Friar  Lands  for  ^7,227,000  gold.  Some  three 
hundred  of  the  friars  have  continued  in  the 
Islands,  and  many  of  them  remain  upon  their 
urban  property  in  and  about  Manila,  which  was 
not  acquired  by  us ;  others  have  gone  out  into 
the  country  once  more,  where  the  intense  feel- 
ing against  them  has  abated  sufficiently,  a 
condition  assisted  by  the  dissemination  of  the 
knowledge  that  they  were  no  longer  of  any 


io8      THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

more  force  in  governmental  matters  than  the 
poorest  native. 

Thus  ended  our  troubles  with  the  friars,  but 
thus  began  our  annoyances  with  the  Friar  Lands, 
with  which  our  newspapers  have  been  agitated 
from  time  to  time,  ever  since. 

The  total  bonded  indebtedness  of  the  Philip- 
pine Government  of  to-day  is  ^16,125,000. 
Of  this,  seven  million  dollars  is  for  these  Friar 
Lands.  Could  they  be  handled  in  a  business- 
like fashion,  it  is  very  likely  that  they  would 
meet  the  bonds.  In  fact  they  might  have  done 
so  already.  But  it  has  been  impossible  to 
handle  them  in  that  manner.  They  are  in 
demand  for  sugar  lands,  taken  as  a  whole,  but 
owing  to  politics,  laws  have  been  passed  pre- 
venting any  corporation  from  acquiring  more 
than  twenty-five  hundred  acres,  and  any  in- 
dividual over  forty  acres  of  public  lands.  When 
the  Insular  Government  sought  to  market  the 
Friar  Lands,  it  found  itself  attacked  by  those 
who  maintained  that  these  properties  were  sub- 
ject to  the  laws  governing  public  lands  ;  in  other 
words,  that  not  more  than  twenty-five  hundred 
acres  could  be  sold  to  a  corporation  or  more 
than  forty  to  an  individual. 

Now,  no  first-class  sugar  mill  of  economical 
dimensions  can  be  maintained  upon  less  than 
about  ten  thousand  acres  of  cane,  and  while 
large  sugar  people  would  probably  have  taken 


THE  FRIAR  LANDS  109 

up  all  lands  that  were  suitable  and  come  close 
to  liquidating  their  cost  to  the  government, 
agitation  In  the  United  States  has  not  only 
prevented  such  an  introduction  of  new  capital 
into  the  Islands,  but  has  continued  the  debt 
and  prevented  sales  of  any  magnitude  at  all,  for 
Congress  has  failed  to  act  in  a  decisive  way  that 
would  end  the  talk  about  the  illegality  of  any 
sales  that  might  be  made.  A  committee  of 
Congress  investigated  the  subject,  differed 
over  it,  and  as  a  necessary  precaution  the 
Secretary  of  War  refrained  from  making  any 
large  sales.  If  the  situation  be  not  relieved, 
these  lands  will  constitute  a  heavy  drain  upon 
the  Insular  Government. 

The  agitation  which  has  been  conducted  by 
our  countrymen,  who  believe  that  it  is  better  . 
for  the  natives  to  be  saddled  with  this  debt  of 
seven  million  dollars  than  it  is  to  pay  it  by 
selling  the  lands  to  the  highest  bidders,  is  upon 
the  basis  that  thus  the  lands  will  be  saved  from 
the  sugar  trust  and  from  exploitation,  whatever 
that  may  mean.  Such  a  contention  is  little 
less  than  silly  In  view  of  the  facts.  While  the 
agitation  has  been  going  on  for  several  years, 
with  the  effect  of  discouraging  sales  and  pros- 
pective investors,  the  lands  have  been  de- 
teriorating. In  large  measure.  Cogon  grass  has 
possessed  thousands  of  acres,  which  depreciates 
the  property  notably;  and  sugar  lands  all  over 


no      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  Islands  have  had  a  distinct  tendency  to 
reach  a  lower  price.  The  view  of  the  agitators 
is  that  if  they  can  prevent  the  sale  of  these 
lands  to  the  large  investor,  they  will  have 
achieved  a  great  victory  for  the  native,  although 
the  lands  affected  are  but  three  tenths  per  cent 
of  fully  fifty  million  acres  of  totally  unoccupied, 
unclaimed,  cultivable  public  lands  possessed  by 
the  Insular  Government. 

The  position  is  simply  this  to-day :  There 
are  one  hundred  and  seventy-one  thousand 
acres  of  the  Friar  Lands  entirely  unoccupied. 
There  are  no  small  tenants  or  small  purchasers 
to  whom  any  considerable  part  of  this  enormous 
tract  can  be  leased  or  sold.  The  original  cost 
of  it  and  the  interest  thereon  can  only  be  ob- 
tained from  its  sale,  unless  money  be  appro- 
priated directly  out  of  the  treasury  of  the 
Islands  when  the  bonds  become  due.  The 
House  Committee  on  Insular  Affairs  examined 
the  law  and  decided  that  these  lands  could  be 
sold  in  large  tracts ;  but  public  agitation  con- 
tinued, and  the  Secretary  of  War  dared  not 
authorize  the  sales  in  large  acreage  until  further 
confirmatory  act  by  Congress.  In  the  mean- 
time, the  interest  on  the  bonds  must  be  ad- 
vanced from  Insular  funds,  the  land  deterio- 
rates, possible  customers  with  the  necessary 
capital  have  gone  elsewhere,  and  no  party 
except  a  corporation  can  purchase  more  than 


THE   FRIAR  LANDS  in 

forty  acres  of  these  lands ;  and  as  a  corporation 
may  not  secure  enough  for  its  needs,  and  no 
individual  or  corporation  has  appeared  as  a 
purchaser  or  a  tenant  for  any  plot  of  forty 
acres  or  less,  none  can  be  sold  or  leased  to  any- 
body, especially  not  to  those  for  whom  we  are 
said,  with  a  great  flourish,  to  be  holding  these 
lands  in  trust.  And  in  the  meantime  these 
supposed  cestuis-que-trust  are  being  taxed  for 
the  carrying  charges  that  the  Manila  govern- 
ment must  pay  for  these  lands  that  these  very 
cestuis  do  not  want.^ 

If  they  were  applying  for  them,  if  they  would 
show  the  least  inclination  to  want  them  on 
any  basis,  that  would  be  one  thing.  But  to 
hold  them  for  people  who  won't  do  that  much, 
and  charge  these  same  people  with  the  expense 
of  holding  them,  is  the  height  of  folly  —  and 
worse.  If  the  United  States  yield  to  the  agita- 
tion that  has  sprung  up  in  America  and  pass 
a  law  that  the  Friar  Lands  can  be  sold  only 
in  the  limited  amounts  described,  thus  render- 
ing their  sale  impossible,  then,  to  be  fair  to  these, 
our  wards,  for  whom  we  say  we  are  acting  as 
trustees,  Congress  should  reimburse  the  Philip- 
pines for  what  money  the  natives  have  to  be 
taxed  to  pay  for  the  expenses  of  carrying  these 


*  For  a  general  statement  of  this  situation,  vide  191 1  Report 
Philippine  Commission,  p.  96. 


112      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

lands  that  we  have  prevented  them  from  sell- 
ing. 

A  trustee  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  waste 
the  estate  of  the  ward,  merely  because  the 
former  has  inflicted  a  deliberate  loss  upon 
him. 


j 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  FIFTH  LABOR  OF  HERCULES  . 

The  toll  of  death  under  Spain  —  The  cholera  epi- 
demic of  1902-1903 — General  anaemia  due  to 
parasites  reaching  system  through  infected  water 
—  How  Manila  has  been  made  a  sanitary  city  — 
Six  hundred  artesian  wells  the  most  potent  con- 
trol of  contagious  diseases  —  We  enforce  sani- 
tary regulations  —  Universal  vaccination  com- 
pelled —  We  establish  a  leper  colony  —  Free 
medicines  and  surgery  —  The  rinderpest  —  High 
infant  mortality  in  Manila  —  Schools  for  nurses  — 
Sanitation  taught  in  all  public  schools. 

The  cleaning  of  the  Augean  stables  was  a 
slight  undertaking  in  comparison  with  purify- 
ing the  Philippines,  as  may  be  well  compre- 
hended from  what  we  have  already  said  about 
the  execrable  conditions  in  the  metropolis  of  the 
Islands.  The  cholera  and  smallpox  swept  off 
the  natives  in  Manila  by  thousands,  and  the 
further  one  went  into  the  country  the  worse  the 
conditions  became.  The  details  of  daily  life 
pertaining  to  the  preservation  of  good  health 
and  decency,  as  observed  amiong  civilized  people, 
were,  except  in  rarest  instances,  entirely  lack- 

113 


114      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ing  from  one  end  of  the  Islands  to  the  other. 
No  imagination  can  make  the  Filipino  customs 
with  respect  to  these  matters  worse  than  the 
actuality. 

Our  army  officers  finally  succeeded  in  pro- 
tecting our  men  to  such  a  degree  that  they 
were  no  more  in  danger  than  they  would  have 
been  had  they  never  crossed  the  Pacific.  But 
when  they  tried  to  make  the  Filipino  adopt 
sanitation  as  a  principle  of  his  life,  the  task 
became  simply  appalling.  The  only  things 
that  occur  to  me  that  the  natives  ever  did  that 
were  sanitary  were  frequent  bathing  and  the 
donning  of  clean  white  clothes,  for  which  there 
is  a  common  liking. 

In  Manila  there  had  never  been  any  at- 
tempt at  sanitation  so  far  as  can  be  discovered, 
through  any  regulations.  No  wonder  that 
about  three  fifths  of  all  the  children  in  Manila 
under  one  year  of  age  were  meeting  death 
annually,  at  the  time  our  civil  government 
went  into  control ! 

In  1 902-1 903  the  cholera  took  off  more  than 
one  hundred  thousand  of  one  hundred  sixty-five 
thousand  inhabitants  attacked.  In  Manila, 
eighty-two  per  cent  of  native  cases  perished, 
and  about  fifty  per  cent  of  Americans  thus 
afflicted  did  not  recover. 

That  awakened  the  medical  officials  as  noth- 
ing else  could  have  done,  and  sanitation  be- 


House  in  Fakola  District  where  Cholera  first 

BEGAN  IN  Manila. 


.r- 


Burning  Cholera-Infected  Houses  in  Farola 
District,  Manila. 


6     «  «       ''<•    > 


f       t        e  ' 


THE  FIFTH  LABOR  OF  HERCULES    115 

came  the  first  object  of  government.  It  was 
early  determined  that  the  anaemic  condition 
of  the  great  bulk  of  the  natives  was  largely  due 
to  the  ravages  of  several  intestinal  parasites 
which  sapped  the  vitality,  drew  out  the  best 
blood,  and  prepared  the  victim  for  almost  every 
disease.  It  was  next  found  that  these  parasites 
reached  the  system  through  infected  water, 
which  the  natives  drank  as  freely  as  the  purer 
variety,  if  the  former  could  be  more  easily 
procured. 

In  Manila,  this  part  of  the  problem  was  at- 
tacked by  installing  a  reliable  water  system, 
by  building  public  sewers,  and  by  rigid  rules 
respecting  the  disposition  of  all  refuse  and  the 
care  of  foods  at  all  times.  Then  the  thirty 
miles  of  canals  within  the  city  limits,  choked 
with  the  pollution  of  a  century,  were  dredged 
out,  every  stagnant  pool  was  drained,  the  moat 
that  ran  about  the  ancient  wall  was  filled  in  and 
made  a  park,  and  each  native  house  was  visited 
by  careful  inspectors,  who  saw  that  their  regu- 
lations were  observed.  Hundreds  of  shacks 
were  burned.  No  mercy  was  shown  to  the 
delinquent;  and  to-day  Manila,  except  in  the  mat- 
ter of  infant  mortality,  is  about  as  healthy  a  city 
as  any  of  its  size  in  the  warmer  part  of  America. 

The  problem  of  drinking  water  throughout 
the  Islands  has  been  solved  by  the  artesian  well. 
More  than  any  other  one  agency,  this  modern 


ii6      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

method  of  reaching  good  water  has  led  to  the 
control  of  contagious  diseases.  There  are  now 
six  hundred  of  these  wells,  and  their  advent 
has  almost  invariably  led  to  a  marked  de- 
crease in  the  prevailing  death  rate  —  in  some 
instances  a  reduction  of  as  much  as  fifty  per 
cent.  It  is  proposed  to  bore  one  of  these  wells 
in  every  town  in  the  Islands  where  other  good 
water  cannot  be  procured. 

Under  Spain  there  had  been  about  forty 
thousand  deaths  per  annum  from  smallpox. 
The  death  rate  was  at  least  fifty  per  one  thou- 
sand for  all  diseases.  There  was  practically  no 
care  for  the  insane,  the  common  treatment 
being  to  hitch  them  with  a  chain  to  a  stake. 
Of  the  some  four  thousand  known  lepers,  all 
but  two  hundred  of  them  wandered  about 
wherever  they  pleased.  A  single  grave  was 
often  employed  a  number  of  times,  the  latest 
occupant  whose  rent  had  not  been  met  being 
thrown  upon  what  the  natives  called  a  bone 
pile,  in  order  to  make  room  for  the  newcomer 
who  had  paid  in  advance.  As  there  was  no 
adequate  quarantine  in  the  Islands  anywhere, 
the  plague,  cholera,  and  other  tropical  infectious 
diseases  but  little  if  any  less  in  severity,  were 
a  constant  menace. 

We  organized  some  thirty  boards  of  health 
in  the  more  important  centers,  and,  backed  by 
the  law,  started  to  enforce  garbage  collection, 


THE  FIFTH  LABOR  OF  HERCULES    117 

sewage  disposal,  street  sweeping,  universal 
vaccination,  the  proper  disposition  of  fecal 
matter,  the  proper  exposal  for  sale  of  food- 
stuffs, etc.  —  in  short,  practically  all  of  the  rules 
so  familiar  to  Americans. 

The  universal  vaccination  was  a  tremendous 
task  and  one  that  met  with  great  opposition. 
If  the  local  officials  were  not  converts  to  the 
work,  it  failed ;  and  so  many  Instances  arose 
in  which  this  was  the  case  that  at  last  a  plan 
was  adopted  that  sent  squads  of  vaccinators, 
about  twenty-five  in  each  group,  into  a  certain 
territory,  there  to  remain  until  every  native 
was  vaccinated.  Before  this  was  done,  records 
of  the  million  people  resident  in  and  near 
Manila  show  that  six  thousand  lost  their  lives 
annually  from  smallpox  alone.  After  vaccina- 
tion was  completed  In  this  territory,  there  was 
not  one  death  in  the  subsequent  year. 

We  built  a  modern  hospital  for  the  insane, 
and  shall  endeavor  to  add  others  until  all  of 
these  unfortunates  are  assured  of  a  good  home. 
We  took  the  lepers,  as  rapidly  as  we  could 
collect  them,  to  a  separate  Island,  Culion, 
there  to  test  one  of  the  most  extensive  segre- 
gation experiments  yet  conducted.  There  are 
now  but  very  few  lepers  elsewhere  in  the  Archi- 
pelago, and  the  study  of  the  results  of  this 
treatment  has  made  it  evident  that  every  leper 
must  be  sent  to  the  colony. 


ii8      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

In  localities  where  the  lepers  were  permitted 
to  remain,  some  three  hundred  new  cases  were 
reported.  Since  all  discovered  cases  were  re- 
moved, but  fifty  new  patients  have  appeared. 
In  all  the  Islands,  where  some  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  new  cases  arose  with  each  new  year, 
the  number  in  191 2  was  three  hundred.  One  of 
the  relieving  incidents  of  our  treatment  of  these 
unfortunates  is  the  discovery  that  the  X-ray  is 
an  apparent  cure,  as  well  as  the  chaulmoogra  oil. 
It  is  too  early  to  feel  positive  as  to  the  complete 
eradication,  but  it  is  settled  to  the  point  that  all 
outward  manifestations  of  the  disease  disappear 
when  treated  by  either  of  these  means. 

The  bone  piles  have  been  forbidden  by  law. 
Quinine  is  distributed  free  of  any  charge,  a 
step  that  has  a  marked  effect  upon  the  preva- 
lence of  malaria.  In  prison  sanitation  very 
great  advances  have  been  made.  The  convict, 
under  Spain,  was  frightfully  treated  when  ill. 
In  Manila,  he  was  hustled  into  an  old,  unsani- 
tary wooden  building,  crowded  to  suffocation, 
and  the  man  who  came  away  alive  was  an  ob- 
ject of  great  surprise.  To-day  no  plague  exists 
in  the  Islands,  despite  the  fact  that  they  are 
surrounded  by  it.  Free  dispensaries,  free  medi- 
cal service,  free  obstetrical  aid  for  the  poor,  are 
to  be  had  for  the  asking.  Free  surgical  clinics 
for  all  applicants  are  in  Manila.  Packages  of 
simple  remedies  for  the  most  prevalent  diseases 


Manila.     Tienda,  (Shop),  before  Sanitary  Repairs. 


Manila.     Tienda  after  Sanitary   Repairs. 


«    t 


THE  FIFTH  LABOR  OF  HERCULES    119 

have  gone  to  almost  every  municipality  that 
had  no  other  medical  sources.  Medicines  are 
furnished  without  cost  to  anybody  in  the  by- 
way places  who  can  distribute  them  with  dis- 
cretion to  the  needy.  A  systematic  attempt 
has  been  made  to  discover  the  whereabouts  of 
unfortunates  who  are  suffering  from  chronic 
surgical  ailments  which  are  probably  curable, 
such  as  constructive  blindness,  clubbed  hands 
and  feet,  tumors  and  the  like,  with  the  object 
of  giving  them  relief  at  the  free  clinics  in  Manila. 
The  government  brings  these  people  to  Manila 
and  returns  them  to  their  homes,  all  free  of 
expense  wherever  such  assistance  be  needed. 
The  death  rate  has  been  reduced,  it  is  believed, 
fully  twenty  —  from  fifty  to  thirty  in  the  thou- 
sand. So  far  as  statistics  can  be  obtained,  they 
make  that  showing,  and  it  is  probably  even 
better  than  that. 

Especial  attention  is  being  paid  to  consump- 
tion, which  has  attacked  the  natives  so  griev- 
ously that  one  in  every  eighteen  appears  to  be 
affected  by  it,  and  some  forty  thousand  die  of 
it  each  year,  so  that  this  is  one  of  the  large 
problems.  To  those  who  are  unfamiliar  with 
life  in  tropical  countries,  this  probably  seems 
strange,  for  warm  weather  in  the  temperate 
zone  spells  health  and  strength.  In  the  tropical 
countries  the  heat  is,  however,  more  deleteri- 
ous because  of  its  duration,  which  eventually 


120      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

slows  down  the  system  and  enervates  it  to 
such  a  degree  that  its  resisting  power  to  dis- 
ease or  parasite  is  largely  nullified.  Even  the 
little  diflFerence  between  the  heat  of  the  day 
and  that  of  night  is  almost  certain  to  cre- 
ate a  cold  in  the  case  of  most  of  the  natives. 
From  this  it  is  but  a  step  to  consumption, 
which  receives  no  intelligent  treatment;  that 
means  infection  until  it  is  almost  an  epidemic. 
To  treat  it,  we  are  establishing  out-of-door 
camps  in  large  numbers. 

The  carabao  is  the  salvation  of  the  Filipino 
in  the  country  districts,  for  it  is  out  of  the 
question  for  him  to  market  his  little  crops  with- 
out this  animal,  the  sole  means  of  transportation. 
Considered  solely  as  a  practical  matter,  the 
cultivation  of  rice,  the  staple  food  of  the  natives, 
is  absolutely  dependent  upon  this  water  buffalo, 
the  fact  being  that  the  Filipino  will  not,  as  a 
rule,  plant  any  rice  at  all  unless  he  can  plow 
his  little  paddy  with  a  carabao.  He  will  starve 
before  he  will  adopt  hand  cultivation,  which  has 
become  so  general  in  other  tropical  countries. 
For  a  concrete  instance  supporting  this  as- 
sertion, we  have  only  to  refer  to  the  effects 
of  the  great  rinderpest  epidemic  of  1900,  when 
the  Islands  were  almost  denuded  of  carabao. 
Instead  of  turning  to  rice  planting  by  hand, 
the  natives  preferred  to  go  without  food  to  a 
degree  entirely  unnecessary. 


THE  FIFTH  LABOR  OF  HERCULES    121 

A  serum  was  developed  that  promised  to  aid 
the  eradication  of  this  most  infectious  disease, 
but  it  failed,  and  effective  quarantine  is  now 
relied  upon  with  entire  success. 

Of  Manila,  the  present  Governor-general 
says,  in  his  191 1  report: 

"The  health  of  the  city  has  been  remarkably 
good,  and  were  it  not  for  the  great  infant  mor- 
tality, the  death  rate  would  compare  favorably 
with  any  American  or  European  city.  There 
have  been  a  few  cases  of  cholera  and  almost  no 
smallpox.  Two  new  sanitary  barrios  have 
been  established  and  are  proving  effective  in 
relieving  unsanitary,  congested  districts.  .  .  . 

"And  yet  the  death  rate  among  the  Filipinos 
in  Manila  is  frightful.  It  is  47.65  to  the  thou- 
sand, while  it  is  but  16  for  the  Chinese  there, 
12  for  the  Spaniards,  13  for  the  Americans,  and 
14  for  other  natives  of  the  East.  This  truly 
terrible  rate  among  the  Filipinos  is  owing  to  the 
mortality  of  all  children,  more  than  64  per  cent 
of  all  deaths  being  those  of  children  less  than 
five  years  old  and  48.8  per  cent  being  infants 
of  one  year  or  less." 

In  studying  the  calamity  it  has  been  learned, 
first,  that  the  death  certificates  issued  were 
probably  wrong  in  the  majority  of  instances. 
Most  of  the  infantile  deaths  were  ascribed  to 
meningitis  and  to  infantile  cholera,  particularly 
the  latter,  about  thirty-five  per  cent  of  the 
total  number.  As  soon  as  necropsies  by  thor- 
oughly competent  persons  were  begun,  however, 


122      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

it  became  evident  that  the  large  majority  of 
these  deaths  were  caused  by  a  disease  akin  to 
beriberi,  if  indeed  it  were  not  that.  Every 
effort  is  being  made  to  produce  an  adequate 
remedy,  but  as  yet  it  has  not  been  found. 

There  is  a  suitable  school  for  male  nurses, 
another  for  the  training  of  females ;  there  is 
ample  field  for  interne  work  in  the  great  hos- 
pital at  Manila,  which  is  the  equal  of  any  in 
its  equipment.  Concrete  hospitals  are  going 
up,  or  have  been  completed  at  other  points, 
like  Cebu  and  Culion,  while  there  is  a  brick 
one  at  Bontoc;  a  sanitorium  is  building  at 
another  point,  and  soon  there  will  be  hospital 
conveniences  within  reasonable  distance  of 
every  center  of  population. 

In  all  the  schools  sanitation  is  inculcated, 
and  gradually  its  efficacies  to  some  degree  are 
reaching  into  nearly  every  hut.  Of  course  its 
progress  is  slow,  but  still  it  is  always  there. 
In  time  of  threatened  epidemic,  strict  quaran- 
tine is  enforced,  and  personal  visits  made  two 
or  more  times  every  day  to  each  hut  in  the 
suspected  district.  It  has  been  years  now  since 
we  have  been  assailed  by  the  cry  of  the  natives 
that  we  were  bringing  on  the  disease  with  the 
strange  disinfectants  that  we  compelled  them 
to  employ.  They  have,  at  least,  ceased  to 
believe  that  much,  and  that  exhibits  consider- 
able progress,  . 


CHAPTER  VI 

GOOD  ROADS 

No  reliable  roads  in  the  Islands  when  we  took 
them  —  Why  all  construction  must  be  permanent 
and  maintained  at  a  high  degree  of  repair  —  First 
appropriation  made  by  civil  government  in  the 
Islands  was  one  million  dollars  for  good  roads  — 
Why  this  sum  and  two  million  dollars  more  was 
wasted  —  W.  Cameron  Forbes  comes  as  Secre- 
tary of  Commerce  and  Police  —  The  only  big 
business  man  ever  in  the  Insular  Government  — 
He  champions  good  roads  with  great  vigor  and 
intelligence  —  How  he  at  last  obtained  success 
— -  Permanent  roads  in  all  directions  and  ade- 
quate system  of  maintenance. 

Under  Spain,  there  does  not  appear  to  have 
been,  outside  of  the  walls  of  Manila,  even  so 
much  as  a  mile  of  permanent  roadbed  in  all 
the  Philippine  Islands.  An  examination  of  the 
war  maps  of  our  predecessors,  brought  up  to  the 
time  of  the  revolution  in  1896,  discloses  what 
purported  to  be  three,  and  only  three,  highways 
of  any  extent  in  Luzon,  with  byways  leading 
from  them.  One  was  supposed  to  run  to  the 
north  from  Manila  for  three  hundred  and  fifty 
miles,  one  to  the  northeast  for  about  an  equal 

123 


124      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

distance,  while  the  third  ran  to  the  south   for 
some  three  hundred  miles. 

It  would  appear  that  none  of  these  were 
capable  of  continuous  service  even  between  any 
two  towns  along  their  extent.  If  they  ever 
were  capable  of  more  employment,  there  was 
nothing  to  indicate  it,  when  we  took  possession. 
At  any  rate,  the  Spaniards  seem  to  have  ceased 
expending  any  money  upon  them  as  early  as 
1895,  when  the  coming  rebellion  was  immi- 
nent; and  other  matters  kept  us  so  occupied 
that  it  was  some  six  or  seven  years  later  be- 
fore we  could  enter  upon  any  comprehensive 
improvements  in  their  condition.  In  this  pe- 
riod, the  highways,  such  as  they  were,  went 
almost  entirely  to  ruin.  What  has  been  said 
applies  with  equal  force  to  the  rest  of  the 
Archipelago. 

The  great  agencies  that  brought  about  this 
wholesale  ruin  were  two :  first,  the  roads  were 
never  permanently  surfaced ;  and  second,  there 
is  an  annual  rainfall  of  some  seventy-five  inches 
in  the  Philippines,  fully  two  thirds  of  which 
falls  in  July,  August,  September,  and  October. 
It  is  a  common  occurrence  for  a  piece  of  appar- 
ently good  road  to  be  transformed  into  an  im- 
passable bog  by  several  hours  of  one  of  these 
rains,  which  we  call  cloudbursts  in  the  western 
part  of  the  United  States.  The  resulting  ruin 
absolutely  cuts  off  all  wheel  traffic  during  these 


GOOD  ROADS  125 

months  of  the  rainy  season.  It  was  this  and 
this  alone  that  made  it  possible  for  Aguinaldo 
to  keep  up  his  resistance  for  so  long  a  period. 
The  trouble  was  to  reach  him,  for  in  nearly 
six  months  of  the  year  troops  could  not  be 
moved.  To  meet  this  situation,  we  made 
extensive  repairs,  using  our  soldiers  before  the 
civil  power  came  into  control;  but  with  the 
first  rain  our  work  was  undone,  and  it  was 
abandoned  in  despair.  Few  of  the  wooden  or 
stone  bridges  and  culverts  that  the  Spaniards 
left  to  us  were  of  any  real  value;  and,  as  al- 
ready said,  when  we  had  restored  peace  in  the 
land,  it  was  a  country  without  roads. 

And  it  never  had  been  anything  else,  con- 
sidered as  a  whole.  The  trunk  lines  that 
were  on  the  maps,  running  like  the  spokes  of  a 
wheel  from  Manila  as  the  hub,  with  scores  of 
branches,  had  left  some  traces,  but  little  more, 
in  many  instances.  As  late  as  1904,  three 
years  after  our  civil  government  began,  there 
were  months  in  the  year  when  it  proved  im- 
possible to  get  a  carriage  through  to  Cavite 
from  Manila,  some  fifteen  miles  distant,  and 
these,  for  many  reasons,  the  two  points  in  the 
Archipelago  most  important  to  us. 

The  effect  of  this  complete  isolation  was  very 
momentous  upon  the  people  at  large.  All 
students  now  seem  agreed  that  there  is  no 
place  on  earth  to-day  that  would  not  be  civilized 


126      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

shortly  if  It  were  opened  up  to  the  outside  world 
by  good,  permanent  roads,  and  then  left  to 
shift  for  itself.  That  alone  would  solve  the 
great  problem  of  the  Feud  Country  in  the 
United  States,  of  which  mention  has  already 
been  made.  General  Howard  and  I  made  a  per- 
sonal study  of  these  regions  during  a  number 
of  summers,  when  we  rode  through  them  on 
mule  or  horseback.  There  one  may  see  a  people 
in  the  making  in  a  land  without  roads.  The 
consequence  is  that  scores  of  thousands  of 
people  of  the  best  Anglo-Saxon  stock  are  living 
with  the  restricted  and  primitive  ideas  and 
conveniences  of  their  ancestors  of  m.ore  than  a 
century  ago.  The  observer  is  made  aware  that 
only  a  highroad  into  them  is  necessary  for  their 
enlightenment,  for  he  may  see  how  they  pro- 
gress where  this  means  of  communication  has 
been  installed.  Usually  the  transformation 
extends  to  some  five  miles  from  the  end  of  the 
new  road,  and  then  the  visitor  is  once  more  in 
the  life  of  the  earliest  settlers. 

From  an  economical  point  of  view,  the  effect 
of  similar  isolation  in  the  Philippines  is  very 
marked.  No  matter  how  rich  the  land  of  the 
native  may  be,  it  is  of  no  value  to  him  or  to 
anybody  else  if  its  products  cannot  be  sent  to 
a  market. 

The  effect  must  Inevitably  be  that  the  oc- 
cupant will  give  up  all  hope  of  raising  to  sell, 


GOOD  ROADS  127 

and  raise  only  for  home  consumption.  In- 
stead of  producing  the  crops  that  he  could 
raise  the  most  economically,  selling  them,  and 
investing  the  proceeds  in  things  which  would 
improve  his  situation,  he  contents  himself, 
because  there  is  no  object  in  doing  better,  with 
an  inferior  and  smaller  quantity  of  product. 
His  family  will  weave  poorer  clothes,  his  house 
will  be  more  crude,  and  he  will  settle  down  to 
the  easiest  way  of  making  a  bare  living. 

But  the  moment  a  permanent  road  runs  by 
that  native's  shack,  a  revolution  begins  among 
its  inmates.  There  is  then  a  reliable  promise 
that  he  can  get  rice  to  the  market-place  in  the 
next  town  every  day  in  the  year.  It  means 
that  he  can  buy  at  a  neighboring  store  those 
objects  which  he  has  always  wanted  for  his 
family.  The  better  the  road,  the  more  money 
he  can  make,  for  his  one  carabao  can  haul 
five  times  as  much  over  a  smooth  road  as  over 
one  that  sends  his  wheels  to  the  hubs  in  the 
mud.  He  can  now  ride  over  rivers  on  stout 
bridges  instead  of  wading  them  and  climbing 
steep  banks  on  the  other  side.  Every  farmer 
within  reach  of  the  new  road  feels  the  oppor- 
tunity, and  it  is  but  a  little  time  before  the 
collective  improvement  demands  a  railroad, 
which  in  turn  —  because  highway  traffic  is 
increased,  —  requires  better  roads  still. 

Also,  there  is  law  and  order  to  be  considered. 


128      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

Lawlessness  thrives  only  in  darkness  and 
obscurity.  It  cannot  stand  the  public  gaze ; 
it  cannot  withstand  the  light.  It  is  for  simi- 
lar reasons  that  gentlemen-of-the-road,  or  la- 
drones,  as  the  natives  term  them,  had  such  full 
play  in  the  Islands  for  centuries.  They  oper- 
ated in  perfect  security  clear  up  to  the  walls 
of  Manila,  with  its  quarter  of  a  million  people. 
As  late  as  1904  I  was  chasing  them  within 
twenty  miles  of  that  city.  With  a  little  band 
of  twenty  they  would  descend  in  the  darkness 
of  the  night  upon  the  house  of  a  wealthy  man 
in  a  town  not  more  than  ten  miles  from  Manila, 
seize  him,  and  carry  him  into  the  forest.  When 
the  leader  had  been  paid  a  thousand  dollars 
by  the  distracted  family  of  the  captive,  he  would 
be  released.  Fifty  thousand  Americans  might 
be  not  more  than  half  a  day's  march  away  — 
and  a  regiment  a  mile  distant;  but  the  roads 
were  impassable  with  the  rains  for  the  first 
part  of  the  way,  and  there  were  none  at  all  into 
that  part  of  the  forest  where,  of  course,  the 
marauders  always  disappeared. 

Napoleon  and  Caesar  left  their  most  im- 
perishable monuments  in  roads.  Those  colossal 
men  knew  their  value.  They  are  the  greatest 
and  surest  civilizing  agency  in  the  making  of 
man. 

That  is  why  the  very  first  appropriation  ever 
voted    by   the    Philippine    Commission    was    a 


GOOD  ROADS  129 

million  dollars  gold  for  highways  and  bridges. 
This  was  in  September,  1900. 

Then  we  made  a  blunder,  a  very  natural 
one,  probably.  As  we  had  ordinarily  in  the 
past  intrusted  the  building  and  maintenance  of 
highroads  in  the  United  States  exclusively  to 
the  town  and  county  officials  concerned,  we 
saw  no  reason  why  the  same  plan  would  not 
work  as  well  in  the  Islands  among  the  municipal 
and  provincial  officials  there.  We  adopted  it, 
the  roads  were  constructed,  and  when  com- 
pleted, turned  over  in  good  condition  to  the 
native  officials.  Self-government  was  in  the 
air.  It  was  being  lauded  to  the  heavens  by 
certain  Americans  who  never  saw  the  Philip- 
pines, and  we  were  foolish  enough  to  yield  to 
their  clamor,  with  the  result  that  not  only  was 
that  one  million  dollars  lost,  but  more  than  two 
million  in  addition,  before  we  awoke  to  the  actu- 
alities of  the  situation  and  ceased  theorizing. 
We  gave  provincial  governors  and  municipal 
presidents  full  charge  of  these  roads,  and  in  two 
or  three  years  after  our  three  million  dollars  had 
been  spent  it  was  a  total  loss,  for  these  officials 
took  no  care  of  the  roads  intrusted  to  their 
protection,  and  the  rainy  seasons  did  the  rest. 
The  surfacing  was  washed  away,  the  stones  of 
bridges  were  exposed,  each  passing  wheel  gave 
them  a  jolt,  and  it  was  little  time  before  the 
entire  structure  fell  and  closed  the  road. 


130      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

In  1904  the  roads  were  poorer  than  when  we 
first  took  charge;  and  worse  than  all,  there 
appeared  to  be  no  hope  of  any  improvement. 
We  had  spent  money  with  the  utmost  freedom, 
and  we  had  made  a  complete  failure.  We 
believed  it  was  useless  to  expend  any  more,  and 
the  Islands  seemed  destined  to  remain  in  the 
same  economical  slough  in  which  we  had  found 
them.  With  affairs  in  this  deplorable  condi- 
tion, there  came  to  Manila,  in  August,  1904,  a 
new  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Police,  W. 
Cameron  Forbes  from  Boston,  a  young  man  of 
about  thirty-four,  who  had  achieved  great 
success  in  large  financial  operations.  He  was 
chosen  as  the  best  man  who  would  go  from  the 
United  States  to  develop  the  material  and 
commercial  interests  of  the  Philippines.  He 
had  charge  of  navigation,  harbors,  coast  survey, 
railroads,  all  public  works,  the  highways,  ir- 
rigation, postal  service,  and  corporations.  He 
was  a  trained  organizer  of  large  business  enter- 
prises, of  their  auditing,  of  their  expenditures, 
and  their  entire  financial  scheme,  from  deter- 
mining the  amount  of  their  bonds  and  stocks 
to  their  marketing.  He  spent  years  in  the  ex- 
amination of  large  transportation  properties 
that  it  was  proposed  should  be  purchased  or 
financed  by  his  employers.  He  was  in  the  very 
midst  of  big  business  in  the  electric  railroad 
development  of  this  country,  with  a  Harvard 


GOOD  ROADS  131 

general  education  to  assist,  and  beneath  it  the 
qualities  of  great  simplicity,  modesty,  and 
sincerity  inherited  from  a  long  line  of  Forbes  — 
who  for  a  century  had  held  a  high  place  in 
business,  philanthropy,  and  the  affairs  of  the 
nation  —  and  from  his  mother,  who  was  the 
worthy  daughter  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson. 
He  was  the  first  big  business  man  we  had  ever 
sent  out  there.  He  threw  himself  with  great 
and  able  vigor  into  the  gap.  He  saw  that 
three  things  were  necessary : 

(i)  Provision  for  raising  and  appropriating 
sufficient  money  for  the  maintenance  of  all 
good  roads  and  the  construction  of  needed  new 
roads. 

(2)  A  system  of  road  construction  of  per- 
manent and  durable  type,  of  such  nature  that 
it  would  remain  serviceable  for  the  longest 
time  for  the  least  money ;  and 

(3)  A  system  of  maintenance  that  would 
keep  in  good  condition  all  roads  and  bridges 
already  constructed. 

Success  or  failure  of  Mr.  Forbes's  campaign 
in  this  matter  depended  entirely  upon  his 
ability  to  get  the  various  native  officials  in  the 
provinces  to  aid  him,  for  they  controlled  the 
situation.  Under  the  laws  they  could  not  be 
compelled  to  do  anything.  If  they  would  do 
nothing,  no  better  results  could  be  had  in  the 
future  than  in  the  past.     Since  our  occupation 


132      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

their  attitude  had  always  been  that  they  were 
glad  to  have  new  roads,  but  not  a  dollar  of  the 
funds  in  their  charge  would  be  devoted  to  the 
necessary  upkeep. 

It  was  a  situation  that  demanded  action  and 
not  theory  —  it  was  a  practical  question ;  and 
Forbes  went  about  it  like  the  practical  man  that 
he  is. 

His  first  step  was  taken  when  he  got  the  Philip- 
pine Commission  to  pass  an  act  authorizing  the 
provinces  and  the  municipalities  to  compel  five 
days'  labor  of  every  able-bodied  man  on  the 
roads,  or  pay  in  default  of  such  labor  the  com- 
muted value  thereof  as  fixed  by  the  provincial 
council.  This  law  was  to  be  in  effect  when  ac- 
cepted by  the  convention  of  municipal  presi- 
dents and  councilors. 

Not  a  single  province  accepted  it,  and  that 
effort  proved  abortive. 

Another  law  was  passed,  but  against  Forbes's 
opposition,  which  authorized  provinces  to  fix 
a  toll  on  roads  and  bridges,  the  proceeds  to 
be  employed  upon  maintaining  these  in  proper 
repair. 

The  result  was  no  better.  The  natives 
showed  that  they  had  at  least  one  thing  in 
common  with  the  peoples  of  all  the  rest  of  the 
world  when  they  rebelled  against  raising  in- 
ternal revenue  by  impeding  transportation. 

Then  the  third  proposition  was  made,  a  law 


GOOD  ROADS  133 

authorizing  the  provincial  boards  to  double 
the  cedula,  or  annual  poll  tax,  from  half  a 
dollar  to  a  dollar,  the  excess  to  be  used  wholly 
for  roads  and   bridges. 

This  accomplished  no  more  than  the  others ; 
and  next  the  persistent  young  Yankee  passed 
two  further  acts,  which  provided  that  ten  per 
cent  of  the  internal  revenue  of  the  Islands 
should  be  divided  in  proportion  to  population 
among  such  of  the  provinces  as  would  vote  to 
double  their  poll  tax,  such  excess  to  go  to  road 
work.  If  any  province  did  not  double  this 
poll  tax,  its  share  of  the  ten  per  cent  of  the 
internal  revenues  would  be  divided  among  the 
provinces  which  had  doubled  it.  The  laws 
further  provided  : 

(i)  That  in  order  to  get  any  share  of  this 
ten  per  cent  of  the  internal  revenue,  a  province 
must  introduce  what  is  known  as  the  ^^camlnero 
system,"  by  which  such  province  would  under- 
take to  spend  ^175  annually  on  each  kilometer 
of  its  roads,  and,  in  addition,  keep  one  com- 
petent road  laborer  with  proper  tools  continu- 
ally employed  upon  each  two  kilometers  of 
the  road  in  the  dry  season  and  upon  half  of 
that  distance  in  the  wet  time  of  the  year ;   and 

(2)  That  the  central  government  would  spend 
money  upon  roads  only  in  provinces  which 
adopted  the  foregoing  measures. 

To  show  the  provincial  officials   what  this 


134      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

meant  in  money,  Forbes  had  the  central  govern- 
ment appropriate  some  eight  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  to  go  into  road  work  in  such 
amenable  provinces  only ;  and  this  sum,  to- 
gether with  the  ten  per  cent  of  the  internal 
revenue,  furnished  the  unprecedented  sum  of 
^2,112,000  that  was  available  for  road  work  in 
only  such  provinces  as  voted  these  measures,    -i 

Here,  at  last,  was  something  that  looked 
attractive  to  the  provincial  native  ofhcials,  and 
they  promptly  fell  into  line,  accepted  the  laws, 
doubled  their  poll  tax,  and  established  the 
caminero  system.  Whereupon  Forbes  notified 
them  that  he  proposed  to  charge  against  each 
officer  whose  duty  it  was  to  see  that  a  road  was 
maintained,  the  cost  of  replacing  each  section 
of  such  road ;  and  every  three  months  the  grad- 
ing, surfacing,  and  every  ditch,  bridge,  and 
culvert  in  that  section  of  the  road  charged  to 
that  official  would  be  checked  up  by  an  in- 
spector, and  if  there  had  been  undue  deprecia- 
tion the  delinquent  officer  was  to  be  removed  ! 

At  that  time  there  were  but  350  miles  of  sur- 
faced road  in  all  the  Islands. 

The  very  first  year  under  these  new  measures 
this  total  was  increased  by  a  third,  the  second 
year  by  a  half,  and  as  much  more  in  the  year 
after  that,  all  in  accord  with  a  general  road 
system  laid  out  for  each  province  with  the  nec- 
essary connecting  links.     Bridges  and  culverts 


GOOD  ROADS  135 

of  steel  and  concrete  were  made  the  rule,  and 
no  temporary  structure  was  erected  without 
permission  of  Forbes  himself. 

The  stimulus  which  the  construction  of  these 
roads  gave  to  agriculture  can  hardly  be  over- 
estimated. New  dwellings  rapidly  arose  beside 
the  modern  road ;  vacant  land  near  by  became 
occupied  and  tilled ;  blacksmith  shops  found 
new  business  in  constructing  broad-tired  wheels, 
and  the  increased  wheel  traffic  was  astonishing. 

When  Forbes  became  Governor-general  in 
1909,  a  year  after  these  results  just  described, 
progress  on  these  lines  moved  more  rapidly. 
The  Filipinos  were  not  long  in  taking  advantage 
of  the  new  combination  of  governor-general 
and  pioneer  road  builder;  and  where,  but  little 
before,  Mr.  Forbes  had  to  hold  tight  to  the  coat- 
tails  of  the  provincial  officials  to  get  them  to 
listen  to  him  on  his  favorite  subject,  he  now  had 
great  difficulty  in  escaping  with  his  own,  for 
from  all  over  the  Islands  came  demands  for 
road  improvement.  The  real  construction  of  a 
metal  road  with  concrete  culverts  and  steel 
bridges  was  something  that  any  Filipino  could 
see,  and  it  soon  instilled  in  him  an  enthusiasm 
that  was  unwonted.  He  learned  that  such  a 
road  meant  more  money  for  everybody  living 
alongside  it;  and  there  is  now  no  necessity  of 
the  drastic  requirements  that  Mr.  Forbes  had 
to  pass  to  get  the  native  officials  to  pay  the 


136      THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

slightest  heed  to  the  only  means  of  communi- 
cation the  people  have. 

In  yielding  to  many  of  these  local  demands, 
however,  the  general  plan  was  lost  sight  of 
necessarily,  and  scattered  sections  of  good 
roads  were  built  in  all  directions ;  but  within 
the  last  year  much  progress  has  been  made 
in  linking  these  together.  There  were  three  mil- 
lion dollars  available  for  roads  in  191 2.  With- 
in the  coming  several  years,  great  strides  are 
promised  in  this  direction;  and  within  five 
years,  continuous  systems  will  be  completed 
in  the  majority  of  the  provinces,  and  nearly  all 
the  large  towns  will  be  in  touch  with  each  other 
with  hard,  smooth  roads,  with  groomed  grass 
slopes,  clean  ditches,  and  a  right  of  way  prop- 
erly maintained.  On  January  i,  1913,  there 
were  almost  eleven  hundred  miles  of  the  heavy- 
surfaced  and  four  hundred  of  the  light-surfaced 
roads. 

The  two  main  road  projects  now  being  worked 
out  are : 

(i)  The  Manila-North  road,  which  is  to  run 
from  Manila  to  Bangui,  the  extreme  northern 
point  of  Luzon,  a  distance  of  350  miles. 

(2)  The  Manila-South  road,  which  will  ex- 
tend from  the  capital  city  to  Sorsogon,  situated 
on  the  extreme  southern  end  of  the  island. 
This  will  be  more  than  three  hundred  miles 
long,  and  when  it  is  done,  there  will  be  a  first- 


Benguet  Roau,     Lower  Section  of  Zig-zag 
FROM  Camp  Boyd. 


GOOD  ROADS  137 

class,  permanent,  smooth  road  from  one  end 
of  the  island  to  the  other,  650  miles  in  extent. 
Progress  is  made  daily,  and  before  the  close  of 
191 3,  that  portion  to  the  north  will  go  as  far  as 
Pangasinan,  so  that  one  can  then  travel  by 
automobile  in  the  dry  season  to  Sibul  Springs 
and  to  Baguio,  the  summer  capital,  a  distance  of 
some  150  miles.  This  will  afford  a  market  for 
a  great  section  of  rice  fields  now  languishing 
from  the  lack  of  it.  By  1914  that  much  road 
will  be  heavy  enough  to  be  in  permanent  use, 
and  in  1917  the  entire  north  road  to  Bangui 
should  be  of  that  character,  too. 
<  By  March,  191 2,  the  Manila-South  road  was 
opened  all  the  way  from  Manila  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  at  or  near  Gumaca  (a  little  beyond 
Atimonan),  a  distance  of  120  miles.  This  is 
capable  of  continuous  use.  A  through  road 
from  Nueva  Caceres  to  Legaspi,  in  Albay  (in 
extreme  south),  a  stretch  of  some  sixty  miles, 
will  very  shortly  be  opened  for  permanent 
traffic. 

Intense  rivalry  has  been  aroused  between  the 
various  provinces  to  see  which  shall  show  the 
best  road  condition  at  the  end  of  each  fiscal  year. 
To  encourage  this  emulation  further,  the  cen- 
tral government  has  offered  three  prizes  :  one 
of  seventy-five  hundred  dollars  to  the  province 
maintaining  the  best  stretch  of  first-class  road 
in  the  best  style;   one  of  five  thousand  dollars 


138      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

to  the  province  constructing  the  greatest  mile- 
age of  first-class  quality  within  a  year;  and  a 
third  of  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  to  the 
province  transferring  the  greatest  per  cent  of 
its  funds  to  the  road  and  bridge  fund. 


CHAPTER  VII 

OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS 

The  insignificant  telegraph  and  cable  system  under 
Spain  destroyed  before  restoration  of  peace  — 
We  install  a  modern  system  of  electrical  communi- 
cation between  all  the  important  islands  and 
centers  —  We  increase  the  railroad  mileage  from 
120  to  more  than  500  —  Ten  millions  in  gold  ex- 
pended in  the  important  harbors  —  Manila  only 
port  in  Orient  beside  whose  piers  a  ship  drawing 
thirty  feet  may  lie  —  Coast  and  geodetic  work  — 
Market  provided  for  out-of-the-way  places  by 
government  vessels  —  A  postal  service  of  the 
first  class  throughout  all  the  Archipelago. 

Private  capital  was  induced  by  Spain  \o 
introduce  the  telegraph  into  Luzon  in  1873, 
and  to  a  less  extent  into  the  islands  of  Cebu, 
Panay,  and  Negros,  where  there  were  Important 
seaports ;  but  by  the  time  we  had  restored 
peace  in  these  lands  there  was  not  enough  left 
of  the  system  to  describe.  What  Spain  could 
not  hold,  she  destroyed,  and  the  natives  did 
the  same,  and  when  later  we  drove  Aguinaldo's 
forces  farther  and  farther  away  from  Manila, 
he  pursued  the  same  tactics ;  until  all  we  could 

139 


140      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

find  of  a  telegraph  system  was  composed  of 
about  four  hundred  miles  of  useless  wires  in  the 
extreme  northern  parts  of  Luzon  and  along  the 
west  coast. 

We  took  hold  of  this  situation  with  a  strong 
hand,  through  the  efficient  signal  corps  of  our 
army,  and  as  rapidly  as  we  restored  peace  we 
installed  lines  in  island  after  island.  In  the 
course  of  the  last  year  of  the  struggle  with 
Aguinaldo  we  stretched  2770  miles  of  wire  in 
Luzon  and  909  miles  more  in  the  Visayan 
islands  of  Panay,  Negros,  Cebu,  Leyte,  and 
Samar. 

Then  arose  the  question  of  inter-island  com- 
munication. When  we  reached  the  Islands, 
there  were  cables  from  Luzon  to  Panay,  from 
there  to  Negros,  and  then  on  to  Cebu,  but  these 
had  been  so  interrupted  by  the  insurgents  as 
to  be  useless.  General  McArthur  cabled  to 
Washington  urging  authority  to  install  a  com- 
prehensive cable  system  which  would  reach 
every  important  point  in  the  entire  Archipelago. 
He  demonstrated  that  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  telegraph  wires  he  had  strung,  he  would 
have  required  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
men  instead  of  the  sixty  thousand  with  which 
he  was  holding  the  Islands.  This  appealed  to 
Washington.  It  saved  money ;  and  General 
Greely,  Chief  Signal  Officer,  was  given  all  the 
authority    that   the   situation    demanded.     He 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         141 

ordered  and  dispatched  at  the  first  possible 
moment  so  much  cable  that  by  October,  1901, 
there  was  a  thoroughly  modern  system  of  it 
between  the  metropolis  of  the  Archipelago  and 
the  islands  of  Basilan,  Boac,  Bohol,  Corregidor, 
Cebu,  Jolo,  Leyte,  Masbate,  Mindanao,  Min- 
doro,  Negros,  Panay,  Samar,  and  Siassi,  effect- 
ing, with  the  assistance  of  the  telephone  and 
the  telegraph  lines  already  completed,  elec- 
trical communication  for  1684  miles  from  north 
to  south,  from  Bangui,  in  northern  Luzon, 
within  three  hundred  miles  of  Formosa,  to 
Siassi,  but  one  hundred  miles  from  Borneo. 
This  system  was  unequaled  in  any  particular 
in  the  annals  of  war  operations.  It  reached 
every  important  island  in  the  Archipelago 
except  Paragua. 

Telephones  were  put  in  with  the  same  rapid- 
ity, beginning  in  Manila,  until  in  December, 
1902,  when  the  chain  of  wires  began  to  be  turned 
over  by  the  army  to  the  new  civil  government, 
the  signal  corps  was  operating  wires  aggregat- 
ing 10,232  miles,  of  which  336  were  telephone 
lines,  1528  submarine  cables,  and  8368  land 
telegraph  lines.  The  cost  of  this  enormous 
contribution  to  the  modernizing  of  the  Filipino 
was  two  and  a  half  million  dollars  gold. 

This  entire  network  of  wires  was  thrown 
open  to  commercial  use  within  three  months 
after  the  capture  of  Aguinaldo  (March,  1901). 


142      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

What  it  meant  to  commerce  alone  may  be 
suggested  by  the  statement  that  tests,  care- 
fully and  accurately  conducted,  showed  that 
in  due  course  no  less  than  thirty  days  were 
consumed  in  sending  a  letter  by  the  postal 
service  as  conducted  by  Spain,  from  Manila 
to  various  towns  in  Luzon,  and  securing  a 
response  thereto  written  immediately.  To  ef- 
fect the  same  operation  between  Manila  and 
the  important  points  in  the  other  islands  two 
or  three  months  was  often  needed.  The  first 
six  months  after  the  opening  to  commercial 
operations,  the  wires  transmitted  some  two 
hundred  and  twenty  thousand  messages.  The 
rate  for  all  points  in  Luzon  was  two  cents  per 
word.     Under  Spain  the  rate  was  ten  cents. 

On  the  fourth  of  July,  1904,  a  new  cable,  the 
only  one  that  has  ever  run  from  the  Islands  to 
America,  was  opened. 

Progress  has  not  lagged  under  civil  govern- 
ment. The  hurried  construction  of  the  wartime 
work,  where  advisable,  is  being  made  perma- 
nent, and  all  flying  lines,  really  useful  only  in 
the  war  days,  have  been  abandoned. 
'  •  Each  year  a  substantial  addition  to  the  system 
is  seen.  In  1910  over  a  thousand  miles  of  new 
telegraph  wire  were  laid  down.  In  191 1  the 
addition  was  255  miles  and  there  were  sunk 
125  miles  of  new  submarine  cables;  and  in  the 
ten  years  since  the  civil  government  took  over 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         143 

the  telephones,  they  have  increased  in  wire  three 
hundred  miles  annually,  so  that  in  191 2  there 
were  8008  miles  in  the  Islands,  with  6430  miles 
of  telegraph  and  1986  of  cables.  Every  impor- 
tant point  in  the  Archipelago  can  now  be  reached 
by  electrical  communication  by  means  of  these 
11,426  miles  of  wires  at  rates  that  are  fully  as 
low  as  those  we  pay  here  in  the  United  States. 

We  installed  the  wireless  as  soon  as  it  had 
proven  its  practicability,  and  powerful  stations 
now  exist  at  Manila,  Cavite,  Corregidor,  Zam- 
boanga,  Jolo,  Malabang,  and  Davao;  while 
extensive  plans  are  already  projected  for  wider 
distribution  of  this  newest  means  of  communi- 
cation. 

When  we  went  to  the  Islands,  there  was  only 
the  narrow-gauge  railroad  from  Manila  to  Da- 
gupan,  120  miles  to  the  north.  This  has  been 
modernized,  from  ties  to  engines,  in  every 
particular.  In  191 1  fifteen  miles  of  new  track 
took  it  up  to  Aringay,  and  in  191 2  another 
fifteen  miles  carried  commercial  traffic  still 
further  to  the  north,  to  San  Fernando. 

Upon  the  south,  a  line  is  now  in  operation 
around  Manila  Bay  to  Cavite  and  on  to  Naic, 
on  the  western  coast,  a  total  distance  of  some 
twenty-five  miles,  thus  establishing  permanent 
service  between  points  that  were  formerly  en- 
tirely disconnected  for  weeks  at  a  time,  except 
by  water,  during  the  rainy  season. 


144      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM-' 

Manila  is  now  connected  with  Batangas,  the 
important  city  on  the  southern  coast  of  Luzon, 
by  a  line  some  forty  miles  long,  with  a  branch 
of  thirty  miles  running  from  Calamba,  on 
Laguna  de  Bay,  to  Pagsanjan;  the  main  line 
that  will  connect  Manila  and  Legaspi  was  due  at 
Lucena,  January  i,  1913;  and  construction  is 
proceeding  at  various  places  farther  toward  the 
southern  end  of  Luzon,  which  will  be  reached 
as  soon  as  the  rails  can  be  laid. 

In  Panay,  one  of  the  larger  islands  situated 
about  150  miles  south  of  Luzon,  a  railroad  is 
now  in  operation  from  Iloilo,  the  second  port 
in  importance  in  the  Islands,  on  the  southern 
coast,  to  Capiz,  seventy-three  miles  away  on  the 
northern  seashore. 

In  Cebu,  still  farther  to  the  south,  there  are 
some  sixty  miles  in  full  operation. 

Summing  it  all  up,  at  the  end  of  191 2  there 
were  over  five  hundred  miles  of  railroad,  more 
than  four  times  as  many  as  when  we  took  pos- 
session; and  by  191 5,  if  present  plans  are  ful- 
filled, there  will  be  a  round  thousand  miles 
of  first-class  railroad,  adequately  equipped  to 
handle  the  bulk  of  the  business  of  the  most 
important  points  in  the  Islands,  and  tapping 
the  great  centers  of  all  their  natural  resources. 

Almost  all  of  this  great  showing  of  railroad 
expansion  —  for  it  is  great  under  the  circum- 
stances —  may   be   ascribed    to   the   fact   that 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         145 

the  Philippine  Government  guarantees  an  in- 
come of  not  exceeding  four  per  cent  on  the  cash 
capital  actually  invested  in  the  construction 
and  equipment  of  all  railroads  whose  financing 
and  other  important  particulars  meet  its  ap- 
proval. 

The  coast  line  of  the  Philippines  is  greater 
than  that  of  the  United  States,  excluding 
Alaska.  More  than  one  hundred  streams  of 
navigable  size  for  light-draft  craft  run  into  the 
ocean  from  the  large  islands.  More  than 
nine  tenths  of  the  people  of  these  lands  live 
on  the  coast  line  or  within  sight  of  it,  if  their 
homes  be  elevated  above  the  intervening  trees. 
All  the  large  towns  are  by  the  sea.  As  water- 
borne  transportation  is  easily  the  cheapest  in 
the  world,  it  will  be  employed  by  the  great 
bulk  of  Filipino  commerce. 
'  Until  we  took  hold,  all  this  water-borne  trans- 
portation was  conducted  upon  the  policy  of 
monopoly  or  privilege.  There  were  no  fixed 
rates  or  schedules.  In  a  word,  the  lines  were 
not  common  carriers.  They  owed  no  obli- 
gation to  anybody  or  anything,  unless  to  some 
Spanish  official  whose  word  was  law.  All  of 
this  was  a  drag  upon  commerce,  which  our 
civil  government  very  soon  altered  by  offering 
subsidies  and  other  inducements  to  steamers 
operating  between  the  different  islands,  which 
would  define,  announce  in  advance,  and  follow 


146      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

definite  routes,  upon  regular  schedules,  with 
fixed,  just  tariffs  for  man  and  merchandise. 
Regulations  were  enforced  by  careful  inspection, 
resulting  in  complete  revolution  of  the  facili- 
ties for  passenger  carriage  that  under  Spain 
was  an  abomination.  Electric  lights,  distilling 
plants  on  every  steamer,  and  modern  plumbing 
were  provided.  Strict  regulation  of  the  pur- 
chase, handling,  and  serving  of  all  foods  was 
enforced. 

Next  the  big  harbors  were  attacked.  The 
enormous  sum  of  ten  million  dollars  has  been 
expended  in  making  them  the  best  ports  in  the 
Orient.  We  dredged  a  harbor  in  front  of  Ma- 
nila until  it  was  thirty  feet  deep  and  inclosed  by 
two  permanent  breakwaters  of  a  total  length 
of  more  than  two  miles.  Two  enormous  steel 
piers,  one  650  feet  in  length  with  a  width  of 
110  feet  and  one  six  hundred  feet  long  and 
seventy  feet  in  width,  both  covered  with  per- 
manent steel  sheds,  were  set  beside  this  harbor 
so  that  ocean  steamers  drawing  thirty  feet  can 
dock  at  them,  an  unheard-of  thing  in  that  part 
of  the  world.  These  piers  are  equipped  with 
a  full  complement  of  railroad  track,  electric 
lights,  and  the  most  modern  of  traffic-handling 
devices.  Enormous  warehouses  are  projected 
to  stand  beside  the  piers ;  and  when  they  are 
ready  for  occupancy,  the  present  expense  of 
handling  the  cargoes,  much  less  than  when  they 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         147 

all  had  to  be  lightered,  will  be  reduced  almost 
one  half.  Two  other  steel  piers  of  much 
greater  magnitude  —  150  feet  wide  and  750 
to  800  long  —  will  be  added  as  soon  as  they 
can  be  completed.  Then,  too,  all  harbor  dues, 
one  of  the  worst  features  of  foreign  trade,  have 
been  absolutely  abolished,  making  Manila  the 
only  free  port  in  the  entire  Orient,  without  a 
charge  for  tonnage,  harbor,  or  light  dues. 

Dredges  were  put  at  work  upon  that  section 
oi  the  P^jy^  Rixer  that  flows  through  Manila, 
and  along  whose  banks  are  the  wharves  of  the 
city,  and  they  have  been  kept  there  ever  since, 
maintaining  at  all  times  by  their  operation  a 
clear  depth  of  eighteen  feet  at  least,  thus  ad- 
mitting many  vessels  that  before  could  do 
nothing  but   lighter  their   loads. 

At  Cebu,  the  second  city  of  commercial  im- 
portance in  the  Islands,  on  the  eastern  coast  of 
the  island  of  the  same  name,  another  revolution 
was  instituted.  There  no  vessel  of  size  could 
approach  a  dock,  everything  having  to  be  taken 
to  and  fro  by  lighters.  That  was  all  changed 
by  constructing  a  concrete  sea  wall  nearly  half 
a  mile  long,  which  increased  the  berthing  space 
of  the  port  about  one  thousand  per  cent  and 
permitted  vessels  drawing  not  over  twenty- 
three  feet  to  moor  beside  it  and  unload  and 
load  directly  to  and  from  it  with  modern  freight- 
lifting  appliances. 


148      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

At  Hollo,  the  third  commercial  town,  on  the 
southeastern  coast  of  Panay,  work  of  similar 
import  was  done.  Modern  wharves,  sadly 
wanting,  were  installed,  the  channel  was 
dredged  and  kept  dredged,  quays  were  widened ; 
and  when  the  work  now  undertaken  is  com- 
pleted, two  large  ocean  steamers  can  lie  by  the 
new  wharves,  discharge,  and  load  direct. 

In  all  the  three  thousand  islands,  crowded 
together  as  they  are,  in  typhoon  territory, 
surrounded  with  threatening  reefs,  with  treach- 
erous currents,  there  was  just  one  light,  but 
not  even  a  singly  buoy  in  operation  at  the  be- 
ginning of  our  administration.  When  the  civil 
government  was  instituted  in  1901,  we  had  in- 
creased the  number  of  lights  to  twenty-seven, 
and  there  were  thirty-one  buoys  in  position. 
Now  there  are  142  lights  — flashing,  occult,  elec- 
tric, and  lantern  lights,  beacons  to  the  number 
of  fifty-two,  and  108  buoys.  There  are  sema- 
phore stations  which  tell  all  commercial  Manila 
what  vessels  are  entering  its  channels,  the  route, 
and  the  probable  time  of  arrival  at  the  wharves. 
Ninety-three  per  cent  of  the  twenty-six  hundred 
men  employed  in  the  bureau  of  navigation, 
which  has  charge  of  all  these  matters,  are  Fili- 
pinos. Some  fifty  craft  move  about,  engaged 
constantly  in  the  work  of  this  department  or 
in  promoting  new  trade  where  other  transpor- 
tation is  not  available.     Many  towns  that  have 


,1 


OTHER   IMPROVEMENTS         149 

never  been  visited  by  vessels  large  enough  to 
carry  cargo  are  put  on  regular  routes  of  coast- 
guard cutters  that  take  their  products  to  the 
nearest  market ;  and  every  small  planter  in 
the  vicinity  knows  that  at  last  he  can  secure 
sale  of  his  goods  if  he  gets  them  to  the  coast. 
This  opens  a  new  horizon  to  hundreds  whose 
efforts  have  been  stifled  heretofore,  and  al- 
though the  rates  charged  do  not  repay  directly 
the  money  outlay,  yet  the  policy  has  never  been 
altered.  As  a  rule  it  is  but  a  short  time  after 
the  establishment  of  one  of  these  governmental 
routes  when  some  canny  seaman  deems  it 
worthy  of  the  installation  of  a  commercial 
line.  He  takes  up  the  traffic,  and  the  govern- 
ment's cutter  withdraws,  only  to  search  out 
some  other  place  in  similar  want  of  its  services ; 
and  so  the  work  goes  on,  all  along  the  entire 
coast,  ever  expanding,  ever  offering  its  aid. 

And  then  there  has  been  the  coast  and  geo- 
detic survey,  which  has  been  pushed  consist- 
ently and  constantly,  for  this  work  lies  even 
nearer  to  the  foundation  of  all  sea  traffic  than 
lighthouses  and  buoys.  When  we  came  to 
look  for  charts  of  the  coast  and  waters  of  the 
Islands,  it  was  astonishing  to  discover  that 
there  were  none  of  any  reliability.  The  con- 
tinuous consequent  loss  of  so  many  tons  of 
shipping  and  many  lives  had  spurred  Spain  to  no 
activity.     We  lost  vessels  because  of  this  lack, 


150      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

and  no  time  was  lost  in  remedying  an  intol- 
erable situation.  We  set  to  work  to  chart  the 
11,500  miles  of  general  coast  line  in  the  Islands, 
and  now  more  than  fifty-one  per  cent  of  the  labor 
has  been  completed,  chart  after  chart  being 
printed  at  Washington  as  rapidly  as  the  data 
arrives  and,  so  urgent  is  the  need,  distributed  to 
mariners  section  by  section. 

The  installation  of  a  modern  weather  bureau 
service,  with  observations  from  various  points, 
made  possible  by  the  telegraph  and  cable  con- 
nection to  all  parts  of  the  Archipelago,  has  been 
of  immense  benefit  to  shipping.  Here  we  must 
pay  tribute  to  the  work  that  was  done  at  the 
observatory  established  in  Manila  fifty  years 
ago  and  presided  over  by  learned  monks. 
Father  Faura  early  began  the  scientific  study 
of  the  typhoon,  the  most  terrible  of  all  sea 
storms ;  and  with  what  he  left  to  Father  Algue, 
who  followed  under  our  administration,  the 
nature  of  these  disturbances  is  now  well  estab- 
lished. This  means  more  than  the  ordinary 
layman  would  expect,  for  the  typhoon  is  capa- 
ble of  being  known  with  remarkable  accuracy. 
Its  progress,  its  duration,  the  location  of  its 
center  (the  danger  point),  its  intensity,  can 
all  be  telegraphed  to  mariners  in  every  center 
of  shipping,  and,  with  the  wireless,  even  to  those 
far  out  to  sea,  who  may  be  unaware  of  the 
storm's  existence.     It  is  now  the  practice  to 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         151 

send    this    information    all    along   the    Chinese 
coast  and  even  to  the  large  Japanese  ports. 

The  postal  service  under  Spain  was  about 
as  worthy  of  praise  as  the  other  facilities  which 
she  supplied  for  opening  the  country  to  the 
benefit  of  modern  conditions.  All  mail  for- 
warded from  island  to  island  was  carried  free 
of  charge  to  the  government  by  such  commercial 
boats  as  plied  between  them  —  when  they  carried 
it.  The  presidents  of  towns  were  everywhere 
obliged  to  act  as  postmasters,  and  to  distribute, 
collect,  and  forward  at  their  own  expense  —  at 
any  rate,  never  at  the  expense  of  the  government 
—  all  mails.  There  was  never  any  steady  ex- 
amination of  the  service,  any  supervision  of  it, 
and  the  results  may  well  be  imagined.  There 
was  no  regularity,  no  integrity,  no  system  to 
any  feature,  except  its  utter  lack  of  reliability 
and  safety,  which  failing  was  constant;  and 
whatever  there  was  useful  was  destroyed  in  toto 
by  the  depredations  of  the  stormy  years  from 
1896  to  1 901.  In  the  first  part  of  the  latter 
year  we  were  operating  but  twenty-four  regular 
post-ofiices  in  all  the  Islands,  and  ten  sub- 
stations at  military  posts.  Letters  went  twice 
a  week  up  to  Baguio  from  Dagupan,  the  north- 
ern end  of  the  railroad,  in  charge  of  native 
carriers.  Aside  from  this,  all  the  land  service 
was  done  by  army  messengers.  But  we  were 
building  with  the  right  foundation,  for  even 


152      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

in  those  days  nobody  could  enter  the  mall 
department  except  through  civil  service.  By 
the  end  of  the  first  year  under  civil  government, 
the  number  of  post-offices  had  advanced  from 
twenty-four  at  its  commencement  to  sixty-six, 
and  seventy  more  were  installed  before  the 
annual  report  of  the  director  of  the  service  for 
that  year  was  in  print. 

From  that  time  progress  became  rapid  in 
extension  and  in  efficiency.  In  a  year  the  num- 
ber of  post-offices  had  risen  to  213.  In  another 
year  it  was  391,  with  102  American  and  289 
Filipino  postmasters.  The  coast-guard  steamers 
were  then  making  regular  calls  with  mail-bags 
among  the  various  islands.  In  1905  there  were 
414  post-offices;  and  so  we  have  gone  on  up  to 
the  present,  gradually  extending,  gradually  im- 
proving in  all  particulars,  as  rapidly  as  has 
seemed  feasible,  until  572  offices  now  supply 
regular,  reliable  service  to  the  some  six  hundred 
towns  and  cities  in  the  Archipelago  —  623  to  be 
exact,  reduced  for  economy  in  administration 
from  1035. 

The  rates  for  letters  are  half  what  they  are  in 
the  United  States;  the  regulations  the  same 
in  all  important  particulars,  where  applicable. 
Mails  are  as  frequent  as  they  are  in  similar 
communities  with  us,  and  the  entire  service  is 
of  a  most  excellent  character  in  every  particular. 
Nobody  seems  to  find  any  fault  with  it.     Of 


OTHER  IMPROVEMENTS         153 

course  the  road  has  not  always  been  direct. 
There  have  been  many  failures ;  in  fact,  the 
ways  have  been  paved  by  them.  There  have 
been  embezzlements,  routes  kept  open  for  a 
time  and  then  abandoned  because  of  disorders 
and  unfortunate  choice  of  officials.  But  we 
have  gone  ahead  always,  until  at  last  the  Fili- 
pinos have  been  given  a  mail  service  in  the 
American  sense  of  the  term,  including,  in  the 
thirty-five  largest  cities,  a  free  delivery  system. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  OMNIBUS   CLAUSE 

Postal  savings-banks  —  Their  great  popularity  with 
the  natives  —  Notable  influence  of  the  constabu- 
lary —  The  first  census  of  the  Philippines  —  We 
give  the  Islands  a  lower  house  of  Congress  —  But 
three  per  cent  of  the  Filipinos  compose  the  elec- 
torate —  Road  and  trail  work  among  the  savage 
peoples  —  How  the  Filipinization  of  the  govern- 
mental service  has  progressed  —  Some  things 
the  Filipinos  do  not  yet  want  to  learn  —  Why 
natives  cannot  be  more  rapidly  taken  into  their 
government. 

Postal  savings-banks  were  in  the  Islands 
earlier  than  we  had  them  in  the  United  States. 
This  was  due  to  a  condition  that  existed  long 
before  we  had  given  it  thought.  If  we  except 
Manila  and  several  other  cities,  there  were  no 
banks  in  the  Islands.  There  was  no  safe  way 
for  a  man  to  keep  his  money  if  he  had  any. 
He  could  send  it  to  Manila,  and  take  out  a 
certificate  of  deposit,  or  he  could  invest  it ;  but 
there  were  drawbacks  to  either  course.  In  the 
end  most  of  the  people  just  went  to  the  post- 
office  and  secured  a  postal  order  drawn  to  the 

154 


THE  OMNIBUS  CLAUSE  155 

order  of  "Self,"  and  when  they  wanted  any 
money,  they  presented  this  blue  piece  of  paper 
and  procured  it  with  no  trouble.  In  1906  the 
Commission  established  the  postal  savings- 
banks,  paying  two  and  one  half  per  cent  interest 
on  all  deposits.  Two  hundred  and  thirty-five 
such  banks  were  opened  the  first  year,  with 
total  deposits  of  three  hundred  and  ninety-three 
thousand  dollars  gold,  contributed  by  1616 
Americans  and  944  Filipinos,  the  latter  com- 
prising thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  total.  Ten 
more  of  these  banks  came  in  the  next  year, 
when  the  deposits  aggregated  seven  thousand 
in  number  and  over  half  a  million  dollars  gold 
in  value.  The  native  depositors  had  risen  to 
forty-five  per  cent.  And  so  the  story  goes, 
until  191 2  shows  414  postal  banks,  with  de- 
posits rising  to  ^1,423,000  gold,  and  with  more 
than  eighty  per  cent  of  the  depositors  Filipinos, 
numbering  in  the  aggregate  23,174,  as  against 
4388  Americans.  This  result  was  largely  ob- 
tained through  the  introduction,  by  Governor 
Forbes,  at  his  own  personal  expense,  of  the  ele- 
ment of  emulation  by  offering  a  series  of  prizes 
to  the  pupils  in  the  various  schools  throughout 
the  Islands.  These  prizes,  in  cash  and  postal 
savings-bank  stamps,  were  awarded  to  the 
pupils  of  each  school  who  first  opened  an  ac- 
count and  deposited  a  peso  [fifty  cents  gold] 
in  the  postal  savings-bank;    and  while  to   us 


156      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  prizes  given,  not  over  a  peso  in  any  single 
instance,  appear  small,  the  stimulus  thus  im- 
parted was  felt  at  once,  for  the  school  children 
did  not  long  remain  the  only  ones  to  whom  the 
benefit  of  the  banks  became  known.  In  a  year 
the  percentage  of  Filipino  depositors  rose  to 
forty-five;  then,  in  1909,  to  fifty-six;  in  1910,  to 
sixty-five;  and  as  already  stated,  to  eighty  by 
1912. 

Then  there  has  been  established  an  Agri- 
cultural Bank,  under  the  auspices  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Islands,  thus  following  the 
policy  of  other  colonial  nations  in  providing  a 
bank  whose  operation  is  confined  by  law  to 
farm  loans.  The  farmer  with  a  crop  to  move 
may  now  borrow  capital  to  effect  that  opera- 
tion at  an  ordinary  commercial  rate,  instead  of 
paying  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  per  cent, 
as  was  the  common  occurrence  before  this 
institution  was  founded. 

Individual  Americans  are  now  to  be  found 
in  some  prosperous  pursuit,  usually  with  their 
families,  in  nearly  all  of  the  provinces.  From 
them  radiates  a  steady  influence  of  example 
that  gradually  changes  the  ways  of  the  natives 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  to  those  of  this  higher 
civilization.  As  a  rule,  these  pioneers  are  young 
men,  former  governmental  employees,  often 
ex-soldiers,  who  first  learned  in  Manila  business 
experience  the  ways  by  which  money  may  be 


The  Old. 

Natives  Threshing  Rice  with  their  Feet.     Bulacan   Province. 


The  New. 

American   Machinery  Threshing  Rice. 


c  c 


THE  OMNIBUS  CLAUSE  157 

made  in  the  Islands.  The  rolling-stone  Ameri- 
cans who  followed  our  occupation  in  the  hope 
of  gaining  some  moss  to  which  they  were  not 
entitled  are  no  longer  an  element. 

In  Manila,  American  daily  papers  to  the  num- 
ber of  three  now  give  the  news  of  the  world 
with  the  same  promptness  that  it  is  published 
in  Continental  and  American  centers.  There 
are  about  a  score  of  other  journals,  some  daily, 
some  weekly,  of  various  character.  Two  are 
in  a  native  dialect.  Some  six  or  seven  are  in 
Spanish. 

Irrigation  has  been  given  much  attention, 
and  a  comprehensive  plan  for  its  general  adop- 
tion is  being  carried  out. 

The  principal  crop  thus  raised  is  rice.  At  first 
thought  one  would  consider  it  strange  that  it 
is  necessary  to  irrigate  where  the  precipitation 
of  rain  is  several  times  what  it  is  in  the  best 
agricultural  States  here  at  home.  The  fact  is, 
however,  that  rice  is  so  delicate  that  a  drought 
at  a  critical  time  will  often  ruin  an  entire  plant- 
ing ;  and  further,  with  irrigation,  several  crops 
can  be  raised,  when  only  one  is  possible  other- 
wise. 

The  first  large  accomplishment  in  this  line 
of  work,  and  upon  which  a  large  sum  has  been 
expended,  is  to  be  the  reclamation  of  a  tract  of 
ten  thousand  acres  of  untillable  land,  in  the 
province  of  Tarlac;    this  would  have  been  al- 


158      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ready  completed  had  it  not  been  attended  by 
engineering  miscalculations. 

There  is  a  Bureau  of  Science  that  through  its 
publications,  distributed  as  public  documents, 
supplies  the  latest  scientific  information  to  the 
main  industries. 

It  was  the  belief  of  the  people  that  fodder 
for  animals  could  not  be  grown  in  the  Islands, 
and  it  had  to  be  imported  at  a  very  high  price. 
In  but  little  time  we  introduced  alfalfa  and 
teosinte  from  Mexico,  with  great  success. 

We  bought  thousands  of  carabaos  throughout 
the  other  Oriental  countries  after  the  rinderpest 
epidemic  and  sold  them  to  the  farmers  for  less 
than  cost. 

Formerly  most  of  the  vegetables  reaching  the 
important  Island  markets  came  from  China. 
The  Filipinos  have  learned  from  us  that  they 
can  supply  this  market  themselves.  A  few 
simple  directions  from  the  Agricultural  Depart- 
ment were  all  that  was  required  to  set  the  move- 
ment afoot. 

The  Philippines  were  a  land  destitute  of 
native  horses  fitted  for  the  demands  upon  them ; 
they  were  too  small  to  be  suitable.  That  condi- 
tion we  are  changing  by  importations  and  in- 
telligent crossing  of  the  native  mares  with  Arab 
and  small  Morgan  stallions. 

In  the  handling  of  forest  timber,  in  the  plant- 
ing, care,  and  reaping  of  crops   on    the   farm. 


THE  OMNIBUS  CLAUSE  159 

in  the  culture  of  tobacco  and  sugar-cane,  the 
most  modern  machinery  is  at  work,  gradually 
teaching  its  value  to  those  who  never  before 
had  seen  anything  but  hand  and  carabao  labor. 
Probably  there  is  no  important  machine  in 
America  that  has  not  its  counterpart  in  the 
Islands,  except  perhaps  for  the  mere  variations 
of  magnitude. 

The  establishment  of  the  Philippine  con- 
stabulary has  been  one  of  the  most  potent 
innovations  of  our  work  out  there.  It  was  or- 
ganized in  1 90 1,  its  officers  selected  from  volun- 
teers recently  mustered  out  and  from  soldiers 
of  the  regular  army.  These  young  men  were 
given  a  few  rifles  and  some  money  and  sent 
into  every  province  under  instructions  to  en- 
list natives  for  the  service.  The  result  is  the 
present  splendid  force  of  Filipinos  which  main- 
tains peace  and  order  in  every  civilized  prov- 
ince —  and  in  some  others.  In  the  first  days 
none  of  the  commissioned  officers  were  natives. 
To-day  fully  twenty  per  cent  of  them  are 
Filipinos,  and  others  will  be  advanced  as  rapidly 
as  they  develop  the  requisite  qualities.  Next 
to  baseball,  many  are  inclined  to  believe  that 
the  constabulary  is  the  most  active  single 
civilizing  agent  in  our  administration.  The 
personnel  has  ranged  from  seventy-five  hun- 
dred to  the  present  roll  of  five  thousand.  The 
prospect  before  every  Filipino  boy  that  he  may 


1 

i6o      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

at  some  time  be  a  member  of  this  body  Is  enough 
to  stimulate  him  to  great  efforts  to  improve. 
These  straight  young  soldiers,  full  of  the  snap 
and  vigor  that  the  best  of  regulars  exhibit, 
are  absolutely  trustworthy,  and  they  main- 
tain a  morale  that  is  most  admirable  and  which 
may  be  seen  reflected  in  an  uplift  of  the  entire 
surrounding  country.  Of  course,  now  they 
are  seldom  called  actively  into  stirring  work, 
their  presence  being  sufiicient  to  enforce  order. 
But  they  are  always  occupied,  either  in  main- 
taining a  quarantine,  repairing  or  constructing 
telegraph  or  telephone  wires,  or  in  similar  labor 
that  keeps  the  governmental  machine  in  good 
running  order.  The  Philippine  Scouts,  com-  i 
posed  of  natives,  a  part  of  our  army,  are  doing  1 
equally  good  work. 

Then  we  took  a  census  in  1 903-1904  that  was  / 
comprehensive  enough  to  give  the  intelligent  j 
student  the  first  authentic,  exhaustive  account 
of  the  resources,  peoples,  and  industries  of  the 
Archipelago,  without  which  no  large  considera- 
tion of  our  problems  and  no  scheme  of  an  elec- 
tive participation  in  the  central  government 
was  possible. 

The  Philippine  Government  Act  of  Congress, 
of  July  I,  1902,  provided  that  two  years  after 
the  publication  of  this  census,  if  the  Islands 
were  in  a  sufficient  state  of  tranquillity  to  de- 
serve it,  a  general  election  should  be  held  for^ 


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THE  OMNIBUS   CLAUSE  i6i 

the  choice  of  delegates  to  a  national  assembly, 
constituting  the  lower  house  of  a  legislative 
body,  of  which  the  Philippine  Commission 
would  be  the  upper  branch. 

Such  an  election  was  called  for  July  30, 
1907.  At  the  same  time  another  innovation 
was  supplied :  the  people  in  the  thirty-four 
organized  provinces  would  for  the  first  time 
vote  upon  their  governors,  who  until  then  had 
been  elected  by  the  vice-presidents  and  the 
town  councilors. 

The  basis  of  representation  to  the  Assembly 
was  one  delegate  to  every  ninety  thousand  of 
the  population,  and  one  for  a  major  fraction 
thereof  —  except  that  each  province  should 
have  at  least  one  representative.  Thirty- 
four  provinces  were  to  be  represented  with  a 
total  of  eighty  delegates. 

These  gentlemen  assembled  at  Manila  upon 
the  1 6th  of  the  following  October,  and  in 
the  presence  of  Mr.  Taft,  then  Secretary  of 
War,  who  had  journeyed  to  the  Islands  for 
the  occasion,  constituted  the  first  Philippine 
Assembly,  which,  while  its  enactments  must 
have  the  assent  of  the  upper  house  (the  Philip- 
pine Commission,  in  whose  appointment  the 
natives  have  no  voice),  is  still  a  very  important 
body  in  the  government.  Thus  did  we  fulfill 
another  promise. 

In  this  first  election,  that  of  1907,  there  was 


i62      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

a  total  vote  in  all  the  Islands  of  98,251,  in  a 
total  registration  of  104,966.  The  percentage 
of  the  total  civilized  population  that  voted  was 
1. 41.      Only  7206  votes  were  cast  in   Manila. 

The  proportion  of  registered  voters  qualified 
to  vote  for  members  of  the  Assembly  to  the 
Island  population  is  3.03  per  cent.  The  pro- 
portion of  votes  to  population  cast  in  the  next 
election  was  2.81  per  cent,  the  total  vote  being 
192,975,  or  nearly  double  what  it  was  two  years 
before.  The  fact  should  be  noted  that  over 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  registration  cast  their 
ballots. 

The  qualifications  of  voters  have  been  already 
stated  in  Chapter  Two. 

Lest  this  be  misapprehended,  it  should  be 
said  that  in  those  of  the  United  States  which 
do  not  have  universal  sufi"rage,  there  is  not  one 
which  offers  so  many  different  avenues  of  quali- 
fications, and  in  many  of  our  States  the  require- 
ments are  far  more  rigid. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  man  who  can- 
not meet  these  requirements  is  capable  of 
understanding  what  a  modern  government  is 
or  how  it  should  be  conducted.  To  know 
that  only  three  per  cent  of  the  eight  million 
people  of  these  Islands  are  taking  part  in  the 
central  government,  is  to  see  the  magnitude  of 
the  task  that  remains  to  be  done.  Probably 
no   other   single  fact  can  be  found  that  is   so 


THE  OMNIBUS  CLAUSE  163 

convincing  to  this  effect.  It  certainly  has 
large  bearing  upon  what  would  be  the  result 
were  we  to  withdraw  altogether  from  the 
Islands  in  any  way  that  would  permit  the  in- 
habitants to  decide  the  control. 

Road,  trail,  and  bridge  work  has  been  very 
actively  promoted  among  the  wild  peoples  of 
the  northern  mountains  of  Luzon.  In  what 
is  known  as  the  Mountain  Province  there  are 
seven  hundred  and  thirty  miles  of  excellent, 
low-grade  horse  trail.  In  one  sub-province, 
twenty  thousand  men  worked  in  191 1  for  ten 
days  in  widening  and  improving  these  trails, 
and  it  would  appear  that  nowhere  else  in  the 
Islands  has  so  much  good  been  done  to  the 
people  as  among  the  fiercest  tribes.  They  are 
divided  into  seven  sub-provinces  for  closer 
administration,  with  exceptionally  intelligent 
Americans  in  charge  of  each. 

Wonders  have  been  worked  by  showing 
these  people  that  it  is  their  welfare  only  that 
we  desire.  Head-hunting  has  been  completely 
suppressed,  the  trails  are  unsafe  only  at  rare 
intervals,  government  stores  where  the  natives 
may  buy  goods  cheaply  and  sell  their  products 
at  a  good  profit  have  been  installed  at  frequent 
intervals,  and  peace  and  good  will  have  been 
firmly  established.  The  chieftains  are  co- 
operating, and  a  complete  social  revolution  is 
well  advanced. 


1 64      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

The  wealth  of  some  of  these  tribes  is  rather 
astounding.  For  example,  there  are  the  Ifu- 
gaos,  who  have  the  most  wonderful  systems  of 
terraced  rice  fields  in  the  world.  Single  walls 
frequently  exceed  fifty  feet  in  height,  and  series 
of  terraces  often  rise  thousands  of  feet  above 
the  rivers  where  they  begin.  There  are  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand  members 
of  the  tribe,  and  their  per  capita  wealth  is  three 
hundred  and  sixty  dollars.  The  Ifugaos,  to- 
gether with  all  the  rest  of  the  wild  men  of  the 
Islands,  hate  the  Tagalogs  with  wholesale 
cordiality,  despise  them  for  their  low  state  of 
physical  development,  and  detest  them  for 
the  cruelties  to  which  the  lowland  race  has  al- 
ways subjected  them,  wherever  opportunity 
has  arisen. 

fc  The  conditions  among  some  of  the  Moros 
have  recently  greatly  improved.  American 
and  European  capital  is  being  heavily  invested 
among  them  in  plantations,  sawmills,  and 
timber  concessions.  The  plantations  produce 
rubber,  coff'ee,  cocoanut,  sugar-cane,  and  rice. 
The  natives  work  the  forests  for  wax,  gutta- 
percha, nipa,  various  barks,  and  the  like,  and 
do  an  extensive  business  in  button  shell,  fresh 
fish,  pearl  shell,  vegetables,  and  fruits.  French 
buyers  are  on  the  ground  with  offers  for  all 
pearls  as  fast  as  they  are  delivered.  Cattle, 
horse,  and  hog  raising  are  steadily  increasing; 


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THE  OMNIBUS  CLAUSE  165 

and  as  rapidly  as  possible  a  complete  revolution 
has  been  worked  in  sanitary  and,  therefore,  in 
health  matters.  The  danger  from  infectious 
diseases  is  now  entirely  negligible. 

Mr.  Taft  and  all  his  successors  had  urged 
that  Congress  permit  the  unlimited  free  entry 
into  Island  ports  of  all  articles  grown,  pro- 
duced, or  manufactured  in  the  United  States 
(rice  excepted).  Their  recommendations  were 
at  last  adopted  in  what  is  designated  as  the 
"Philippine  Tariff  Law  of  1909."  In  the  same 
year  "The  Payne  Tariff  Law"  reciprocated  by 
admitting  Philippine  products  or  manufactures, 
except  rice,  with  certain  limitations  of  the 
amount  of  sugar,  tobacco,  and  cigars.  Of  the 
effects  of  these  acts  we  shall  speak  later. 

The  remarkable  showing  made  near  the  close 
of  Chapter  Two  of  the  extent  to  which  as  early 
as  1903  we  had  admitted  the  natives  into  their 
government  has  been  constantly  bettered  year 
by  year. 

I  All  the  provincial  officers,  995  in  number, 
are  now  Filipinos,  except  twenty- two  American 
treasurers  and  fourteen  American  subo^-di- 
nates.  The  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court 
is  a  Filipino,  and  the  court  is  composed  of  four 
Americans  and  three  natives.  The  Philip- 
pine Commission  has  four  natives  and  five 
Americans,  and  in  the  civil  service  the  propor- 
tion  of   natives    to   Americans    has   gradually 


i66      THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

increased  from  forty  per  cent  in  1903  to  sixty 
per  cent  in  1907,  sixty-three  per  cent  in  1909, 
and  sixty-seven  per  cent  by  the  latest  in- 
formation. 

In  191 1,  in  all  the  various  municipal  and 
township  governments,  there  were  108  Ameri- 
cans to  12,685  natives.  There  were  2633 
Americans  and  4981  Filipinos,  with  a  perma- 
nent status  in  the  governmental  civil  service, 
indicating  that  since  1905  there  has  been  a 
net  decrease  of  Americans  of  674,  while  in  the 
same  period  there  has  been  a  net  increase  of 
natives  of  958. 

The  following  recent  statement  of  the  present 
governor-general,  Mr.  Forbes,  with  respect  to 
this  matter,  seems  so  concise  and  full  of  so 
much  common  sense  that  it  is  adopted  as 
sound. 

"The  so-called  Filipinization  of  the  service," 
he  says,  "has  progressed  more  during  the  past 
year  than  in  the  two  preceding  years.  This 
fact  does  not  seem  to  satisfy  the  advocates 
of  a  more  rapid  Filipinization  of  the  service, 
as  their  eyes  seem  to  be  fixed  upon  the  higher 
salaried  positions,  and  they  let  the  fact  of  the 
steady  increase  in  the  percentage  of  Filipinos 
to  Americans  pass  by  unnoticed.  It  is  neces- 
sary, however,  to  proceed  on  intelligent  lines 
by  gradual  processes  and  to  make  changes  only 
when  it  is  clearly  shown  that  no  disadvantage 
to  the  service  will  ensue  when  a  change  is  made. 


THE  OMNIBUS   CLAUSE  167 

Two  classes  of  disadvantages  must  be  taken 
into  consideration  :  One  is  the  demoralization 
of  the  service  where  American  employees  are 
displaced,  to  the  possible  acceleration  of  the  al- 
ready alarming  high  rate  at  which  the  Americans 
are  leaving  the  service ;  and  the  second  is  with 
reference  to  the  capacity  of  the  Filipino  to 
properly  fulfill  the  duties  of  the  position. 
There  are  some  classes  of  work  in  which  Ameri- 
cans are  necessary ;  for  example,  it  is  not  be- 
lieved advisable  to  reduce  the  number  of  Ameri- 
can school-teachers ;  in  fact,  it  would  give  me 
the  keenest  pleasure  were  the  finances  such  as 
to  justify  doubling  the  number  of  American 
teachers  in  the  Islands,  as  it  is  impossible  to  get 
Filipinos  who  can  teach  the  English  language  as 
can  Americans.  It  is  not  my  purpose  to  Filipi- 
nize  the  constabulary  to  any  very  great  extent. 
I  believe  the  maintenance  of  order  had  best  be 
conducted  by  American  officers.  It  is  my 
belief  that  in  the  judiciary  the  proportion  should 
be  one  half  American  to  one  half  Filipino. 
It  is  important  that  certain  proportions  of  the 
officers  in  the  attorney-general's  and  prosecut- 
ing attorney's  offices,  in  the  force  of  engineers, 
and  in  the  executive  positions  in  the  bureau 
should  be  American  for  a  number  of  years  to 
come.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  my  belief  that 
there  are  many  positions  in  which  the  number 
of  Filipinos  in  the  service  ought  to  be  very 
largely  increased.  It  is  unfortunately  true 
that  in  the  matter  of  public  works  it  is  impos- 
sible to  find  Filipinos  equipped  to  do  the  work 
of  engineers.  Few  Filipinos  have  devoted 
themselves  to  the  science  of  engineering,  and  it 


1 68      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

is  impossible  to  find  enough  Filipinos  equipped 
to  take  on  these  duties.  In  the  matter  of 
veterinarians,  not  only  has  the  government 
been  unable  to  find  them,  but  the  Filipinos 
have  not  cooperated  in  the  efforts  of  the  gov- 
ernment to  educate  them,  it  having  been  found 
that  there  are  very  few  applicants  for  the 
veterinary  school  which  the  government  un- 
dertook to  establish. 

"There  are  many  positions,  however,  where 
more  Filipinos  could  be  employed  with  dis- 
tinct benefit  to  the  service,  and  the  attention 
of  all  responsible  officers  will  be  called  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  desire  of  the  administration 
that  the  percentage  of  Filipinos  in  the  service 
be  increased  with  greater  rapidity." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  AMERICAN  PERSONNEL 

High  attainments  of  our  most  important  officials  in 
the  Islands  —  Young  experts  filling  the  executive 
places  —  Americans  in  the  service  compelled  to 
leave  the  Islands  at  stated  periods  for  their  health 
—  Revolution  in  manner  of  living  since  the  early 
days  —  The  beach-comber  now  only  in  history  — 
The  harm  he  and  other  dissolute  Americans 
wrought  —  Our  first  American  treasurers  largely 
dishonest. 

In  carrying  out  these  great  eflForts  to  give  the 
Filipinos  the  same  opportunities  for  progress 
that  we  have  in  the  United  States,  we  have 
been  scrupulously  careful  In  choosing  for  the 
high  places  the  Americans  who  should  repre- 
sent us  upon  the  ground. 

Mr.  Taft  was  made  the  first  governor  in 
1 901.  Associated  with  him  were  the  other 
members  of  the  Taft  Commission,  who  be- 
came heads  of  departments,  Worcester  of  the 
Interior,  Wright  of  Commerce  and  Police,  Ide 
of  Finance  and  Justice,  and  Moses  of  Public 
Instruction.     We  have  often  had  Washington 

169 


lyo      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

cabinets  that  were  of  far  less  eminence.  Mr. 
Worcester  still  remains. 

By  the  time  Mr.  Taft  was  transferred  to 
Washington  in  January,  1904,  after  nearly 
four  years  in  the  Philippines,  the  Island  gov- 
ernment was  as  smooth-running  as  our  own. 
Mr.  Wright  succeeded  him  and  then  became 
our  ambassador  to  Japan  in  the  spring  of  1906. 

In  April,  1906,  Mr.  Ide  became  governor- 
general,  resigning  after  several  months'  service 
to  go  to  Spain  as  our  minister.  He  was  suc- 
ceeded in  September  by  James  F.  Smith,  who 
came  to  the  Islands  as  colonel  of  California 
Volunteers,  in  1898,  and  had  since  been  gov- 
ernor of  Negros,  collector  of  customs  at  Manila, 
brigadier-general  of  volunteers,  associate  jus- 
tice of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Islands,  and  a 
member  of  the  Commission  since  1902.  No 
man  of  our  race  knew  the  people  and  their 
needs  better  than  he;  and  according  to  Gov- 
ernor Forbes,  to  whom  the  credit  has  always 
been  given,  it  was  Smith  who  suggested  the 
doubling  of  the  cedula  tax  that  cut  the  Gordian 
knot  and  set  Forbes's  road  system  upon  its 
feet,  as  related  in  Chapter  Six.  Mr.  Smith 
was  also  the  associate  of  Mr.  Taft  before  the 
Vatican  in  the  Friar  Land  negotiations. 

He  was  succeeded  in  November,  1909,  by 
Mr.  Forbes,  who  still  occupies  the  position. 

Of  the  other   members   of  the   Commission 


THE  AMERICAN  PERSONNEL    171 

who  have  served  from  time  to  time,  it  is  but 
their  due  to  say  that  they  have  never  lowered 
the  standard  set  in  the  beginning  in  any  par- 
ticular^ and  our  country  could  scarcely  have 
furnished  men  more  worthy  in  character,  ability, 
and  experience  for  leadership  in  the  Islands. 
The  one  now  most  in  the  public  eye  is  W. 
Morgan  Shuster,  who  became  an  international 
figure  in  Persia  In  191 1. 

In  Mr.  Forbes,  who  came  In  the  summer  of 
1904  as  Secretary  of  Commerce  and  Police,  the 
Island  administration,  as  already  said,  was 
provided  with  its  first  big  business  man.  In 
him,  with  his  youth,  his  high  education,  his 
athletic  qualifications,  his  experience  in  big 
business,  in  engineering  problems,  and  in  audit- 
ing, and  his  natural  philanthropy,  the  gov- 
ernment was  provided  with  just  the  official 
it  then  required.  Up  to  that  time  practically 
all  our  efforts  had  been  directed  to  setting  up  a 
government  upon  which,  as  a  foundation,  we 
could  give  industrial  stability,  progress,  and 
development.  As  soon  as  that  foundation  was 
laid,  and  liberty,  equality,  and  opportunity 
had  become  assured  for  every  Filipino,  President 
Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Taft  sought  all  over  the 
United  States  for  the  best  man  to  develop  the 
industrial  superstructure ;  that  man  was  de- 
termined to  be  Mr.  Forbes,  and  nobody  has 
questioned   the   correctness   of   the   judgment. 


172      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

As  we  shall  soon  see,  an  Industrial  revolution 
began  with  his  arrival;  he  was  equal  to  the 
great  demand. 

This  exceptional  record  of  the  chief  govern- 
ing body  is  undoubtedly  due  to  the  fact  that 
Mr.  Taft  personally  has  been  appointing  these 
men  ever  since  1900,  either  as  President  of 
the  Commission,  Governor,  Secretary  of  War, 
or  President  of  the  United  States. 

Upon  several  occasions,  violent  and  virulent 
attacks  have  been  made  in  America  upon  the 
conduct  of  some  of  the  Commission,  but  in 
every  instance  Congressional  investigation  has 
resulted  in  exoneration. 

For  other  high  positions,  the  most  expert 
men  In  the  United  States  who  could  be  induced 
to  go  have  been  employed.  Taking  these, 
man  for  man,  they  appear  fully  equal  to  similar 
officials  in  our  governmental  service.  They 
were  mostly  the  youngest  men  who  could  be 
procured,  who  had  become  eminent  here  in 
their  especial  branches. 

For  the  civil  service  positions,  young  college 
men  have  been  especially  sought,  and  every 
effort  made  to  attract  them.  The  spacious 
houses  In  Manila  of  the  Elks,  the  Army  and 
Navy,  the  Manila,  and  Polo  clubs  have  been 
thrown  open  to  them,  as  have  the  doors  of  the 
highest  officials ;  and  society,  while  hardly 
surpassed    in    any    particular    In    any    capital, 


THE  AMERICAN  PERSONNEL    173 

has  the  rare  attribute  of  asking  nobody  for  a 
pedigree  or  a  bank  account.  It  demands  only 
character.  Eight  hundred  automobiles  fly 
about  Manila,  where  there  were  almost  none 
five  or  six  years  ago.  Polo  came  with  Forbes, 
who  is  an  expert,  and  his  imported  ponies  set 
a  standard  that  gave  the  sport  the  same  place 
that  it  occupies  in  India,  England,  France, 
and  the  United  States.  At  Baguio  a  summer 
resort  has  been  created  in  the  high  mountains, 
with  a  climate  that  few  places  in  America  can 
surpass,  and  to  that  point,  by  a  most  beautiful 
automobile  road  that  is  a  model  of  engineering, 
the  administrative  forces  are  moved  in  the  wet, 
hot  season.  A  month's  vacation  is  given  to 
all  in  the  service,  each  year,  and  besides  there 
is  about  the  same  length  of  time  allowed  to 
accumulate,  year  by  year,  until  it  will  give 
opportunity,  with  free  transportation,  to  visit 
the  home  land.  It  is  desired  that  all  shall  leave 
the  Islands  at  least  every  three  years,  and  to 
enforce  this,  as  far  as  possible,  cumulative  leave 
is  not  permitted  after  a  period  of  five  years 
since  last  availed  of.  And  we  may  add  that 
few  want  to  remain  in  "the  States,''  as  they  call 
their  country,  after  their  leaves  have  expired, 
so  attractive  has  the  Island  life  become.^ 

This   denotes   a   revolution   that   would   not 

*  For  a  hostile  view  of  Insular  Service,  vide  Blount,  "American 
Occupation  of  the  Philippines,"  Ch.  XXIV  (1912}. 


174      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

have  been  deemed  possible  ten  years  ago,  when 
existence  there  was  unbearable,  with  its  tin 
pans  for  bathtubs,  its  canned  milk,  a  total  lack 
of  vegetables,  clouds  of  flies  and  mosquitoes, 
with  lizards  running  up  and  down  the  walls  of 
the  dining-room  in  the  best  hotel,  whose  ac- 
commodations were  a  warrant  for  arson. 

But  there  has  been  a  darker  picture  that  must 
be  mentioned  in  this  chapter.  The  Americans 
were  not  always  of  the  present  class  out  there. 
The  beach-comber  and  the  bum  followed  our 
flag;  and  before  peace  had  been  really  secured, 
the  large  majority  of  the  towns  from  one  end 
of  the  Archipelago  to  the  other  were  afflicted 
with  dissolute,  drunken,  lawless  Americans, 
who  were  subsisting  upon  the  labor  of  the  low 
Filipino  women  with  whom  they  cohabited. 
They  were  quarrelsome  and  dishonest.  They 
secured  what  money  they  needed  in  addition  to 
that  supplied  by  the  means  just  mentioned,  by 
borrowing,  gambling,  begging,  or  stealing  it 
from  the  natives  —  and  our  aim  in  the  Islands, 
we  had  told  the  inhabitants,  was  to  give  them 
the  advantages  of  American  civilization  ! 

This  gentry  we  at  last  drove  out,  mostly  by 
deportation  under  a  Vagrancy  Act;  but  what 
they  did  there  will  long  deter  our  progress  and 
that  of  the  natives. 

But  even  worse  were  our  first  experiments 
with  the  Americans  we  appointed  as  provincial 


THE  AMERICAN  PERSONNEL    175 

treasurers,  because  we  felt  that  we  could  not 
yet  be  sufficiently  sure  of  native  honesty.  Of 
the  entire  thirty-four,  one  half  became  embez- 
zlers !  That,  of  course,  had  tremendous  effect 
upon  our  prestige.  In  the  face  of  that  ter- 
rible showing,  still  we  had  to  proclaim  that  the 
Americans  had  come  to  the  Islands  for  the 
benefit  of  the  Filipinos.  The  only  satisfaction 
to  be  derived  from  the  incident  was  that  we 
sent  every  one  of  these  criminals  to  Bilibid 
prison  in  Manila  with  sentences  of  twenty-five 
years. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  BUSINESS  EXPANSION 

Total  imports  and  exports  averaged  thirty-five  mil- 
lion dollars  under  Spain  —  In  five  years  under 
us  they  increased  to  sixty-six  million  dollars  and 
in  191 2  reached  the  figure  of  one  hundred  and  five 
million  dollars  —  Quickening  effect  of  the  Payne 
Tariff  Bill  —  Great  growth  in  the  tobacco  and 
sugar  industries  —  Showing  of  the  internal  reve- 
nues —  A  complete  industrial  revolution  accom- 
plished. 

If  the  tremendous  works  and  eflForts  that 
have  been  detailed  in  the  preceding  chapters 
have  been  performed  with  intelligence,  it  is 
but  reasonable  to  expect  them  to  have  resulted 
in  some  progress  that  can  be  mathematically 
demonstrated. 

Under  Spain,  according  to  the  best  informa- 
tion her  records  show,  the  total  valuation 
of  Philippine  exports  and  imports  for  the 
last  five  years  of  her  occupation  averaged 
thirty-five  million  dollars.  In  the  war  days  of 
1899,  they  fell  to  twenty-five  million  dollars. 
A  year  later  they  went  to  ^40,350,000;  to 
$53,490,000  in   1901 ;     three   millions  more  in 

176 


THE  BUSINESS  EXPANSION      177 

1902,  and  to  sixty-six  million  dollars  in  1903, 
about  double  the  average  under  Spain.  This  fig- 
ure was  not  exceeded  until  1910,  the  first  year 
under  the  two  new  tariff  acts  before  mentioned, 
which  gave  free  trade  between  the  United 
States  and  the  Islands,  with  limitations  which 
as  yet  need  not  be  enforced. 

The  first  evidence  of  what  the  Payne  Bill 
was  to  mean  to  the  Filipinos  was  a  sharp  in- 
crease in  the  price  of  tobacco  and  sugar,  prices 
that  enabled  the  natives  greatly  to  increase 
production,  to  pay  their  obligations,  to  buy 
more  carabao,  and  to  raise  wages.  The  amount 
of  land  under  sugar  cultivation  largely  increased. 
In  some  of  the  provinces  enough  seed  cane 
could  not  be  had,  and  the  people  cut  up  the 
growing  cane  instead  of  reducing  it  to  sugar, 
in  order  to  make  seed  for  the  next  crop.  In 
Occidental  Negros  the  activity  has  been  es- 
pecially marked,  and  the  proprietors  of  large 
tracts  of  land  have  increased  that  devoted  to 
sugar  to  an  amount  estimated  to  be  fifty-two 
per  cent  of  the  total  cultivated  area.  One  of 
the  larger  owners  of  sugar  haciendas  in  that 
province  reports  that  he  purchased  five  hundred 
carabao  during  1910,  doubled  the  acreage  of 
his  sugar  plantation  during  191 1,  and  in  1912 
put  up  a  modern  sugar  mill.  Most  of  the 
large  estates  have  paid  off  their  indebtedness 
contracted  during  the  times  of  the  failure  of 


178      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

crops  and  the  worst  of  the  rinderpest ;  and  the 
customs  reports  of  Iloilo  and  Cebu  show  that 
the  unprecedented  number  of  more  than  fifty- 
five  hundred  draft  animals  landed  there  in  191 1. 

But  the  greatest  revival  occurred  in  the  to- 
bacco industry,  not  only  among  the  tobacco 
growers,  mostly  to  be  found  in  northern  Luzon, 
particularly  in  the  Cagayan  Valley,  but  also 
among  the  cigar  manufacturers,  centered  at 
Manila. 

The  Payne  Bill  provided  that  not  more  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  million  Philippine  cigars 
could  be  imported  into  the  United  States  free 
of  duty.  Prior  to  this  law,  probably  most  of 
the  Philippine  cigars  sold  in  America  were 
made  in  New  Jersey  from  plants  grown  there, 
and  in  1908  there  were  but  thirty  thousand  of 
the  genuine  sort  that  came  to  us.  The  first 
year  of  the  Payne  Bill  sent  this  total  up  to 
eighty-four  million.  But  in  this  rush  poor 
quality  crept  in  too  often,  and  new  customers 
who  might  have  been  held  by  good  cigars  were 
driven  away  by  bad  ones,  so  in  191 1  we  took 
but  twenty-three  million.  There  is  assurance, 
however,  that  regulations  to  improve  the 
quality  now  enforced  at  the  exporting  points 
will  gradually  bring  the  trade  up  once  more. 
But,  even  at  the  figure  last  quoted,  the  revival 
in  the  exports  to  us  is  enormous,  an  increase 
from  thirty  thousand  to  twenty-three  million. 


THE  BUSINESS  EXPANSION      179 

The  amount  of  Internal  revenues  exhibits 
great  increase  and  must  be  a  true  indicator 
of  the  rejuvenation.  These  revenues  are  col- 
lected on  cigarettes,  cigars,  and  liquors,  and,  at 
the  rate  of  one  third  of  one  per  cent  from  manu- 
facturers and  merchants  who  do  business  ex- 
ceeding ^250  per  annum,  reckoned  upon  the 
gross  value  of  goods  sold  or  exchanged  (but  not 
exported,  and  not  counting  spirits,  tobacco,  and 
farm  products). 

In  the  first  year  of  the  Payne  Bill,  this  rev- 
enue increased  by  twenty  per  cent,  and  in  191 1 
by  forty  per  cent  more,  a  total  gain  of  sixty 
per  cent;  and  in  191 1  the  gross  sales  of  every- 
thing by  these  taxed  classes  showed  an  increase 
of  more  than  one  third  over  those  of  1909. 
Even  the  imports  from  Europe  and  countries 
other  than  our  own  increased  largely,  from 
twenty-three  million  dollars  in  1909  to  thirty 
million  dollars  in  191 1,  and  to  ^33,945,825  in 
1912;  while  with  us  they  grew  (exclusive  of 
gold  and  silver)  from  $4,691,000  in  1909  to 
$10,775,000  in  1910,  to  $19,483,000  in  191 1, 
and  to  $20,604,155  in  191 2. 

The  total  exports  and  imports  in  1909,  be- 
fore the  Payne  Bill  was  passed,  amounted  to 
fifty-nine  million  dollars.  In  1910  they  rose 
to  seventy-seven  million  dollars,  in  191 1  to 
$84,640,000,  and  in  191 2  to  one  hundred  and 
five  million  dollars.     When  attention  is  called 


i8o      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLExM 

to  the  total  in  1899  of  only  twenty-five  million 
dollars,  the  enormous  extension  is  readily 
grasped.     It  is  over  four  hundred  per  cent. 

(The  figures  in  the  last  two  paragraphs  indi- 
cate a  business  expansion  of  one  hundred  and 
eighty  million  dollars  gold  in  three  years.) 

And  we,  in  the  United  States,  secured  much 
direct  benefit  from  these  tariff  bills,  as  the  fol- 
lowing shows  : 

During  the  first  nine  months  of  the  new  act, 
commercial  imports  from  the  United  States 
increased  from  ^4,700,000  to  ^10,775,000,  or 
over  125  per  cent,  for  the  initial  time  placing 
this  country  first  among  the  exporters  to  the 
Islands.  The  rule  in  practically  every  tropi- 
cal country  is  that  cotton  cloths  supply  the 
largest  item  among  imports.  This  is  notably 
the  case  in  the  Philippines,  and  so  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  importations  of  cotton  goods  from 
this  country  increased  about  three  hundred 
per  cent  the  first  year  of  free  trade,  thus  di- 
verting some  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
dollars  worth  of  business  of  this  character  to 
ourselves  from  the  various  European  countries 
and  India. 

The  year  before  the  Payne  Bill,  the  Philip- 
pines bought  from  us  three  hundred  and  eighty- 
six  thousand  dollars  worth  of  illuminating  oil. 
The  year  later  their  purchases  amounted  to  nine 
hundred  and  forty-two  thousand  dollars  of  it. 


THE   BUSINESS  EXPANSION      i8i 

Up  to  1909  the  wheat  flour  trade  had  been 
about  evenly  divided  between  us  and  Aus- 
tralia. The  first  year  under  the  new  tariif, 
we  had  eighty-two  per  cent  of  the  total.  In 
1910  we  sold  the  Islands  170  per  cent  more  iron 
in  plates  and  sheets  than  in  1909.  In  1909 
the  Islands  bought  $275  worth  of  cement  from 
us.  In  1910  they  acquired  one  hundred  and 
ninety-three  thousand  dollars  worth  of  that 
commodity.  The  Islands  promptly  increased 
their  importations  of  fish  and  fish  products 
over  three  hundred  per  cent.  It  was  the  same 
with  coffee,  only  the  increase  was  almost 
seven  hundred  per  cent.  Of  boots  and  shoes 
they  took  nearly  three  times  as  many.  The 
story  of  other  commodities,  such  as  wax  and 
paraffin,  of  automobiles  and  carriages,  Ameri- 
can-made silks,  brass,  copper,  and  lumber,  is 
the  same  in  general  tendency. 

Turning  to  the  benefits  derived  by  the 
Filipinos,  we  find  that  they  sold  to  us  in  1909 
ten  million  dollars  worth  of  their  products. 
In  1910  they  sent  us  ^18,750,000  worth  of 
them.  In  1909,  the  Islands  sold  to  us  sugar  to 
the  value  of  six  hundred  and  fourteen  thou- 
sand dollars.  In  1910  they  sold  us  between 
eight  and  nine  times  as  much,  amounting  to  a 
valuation  of  five  and  a  half  millions.  The  offi- 
cial figures  for  191 1  show  that  they  sent  us 
$7,144,000,  more  than  eleven  times  what  they 


1 82      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

were  forwarding  to  us  before  the  tariff  was  taken 
off.  There  is  also  a  great  advance  in  their  sales 
to  us  of  copra,  of  hemp,  of  Philippine  hats, 
of  which  latter  they  sold  to  us  in  1909  but 
eighty-eight  hundred  dollars  worth.  In  1910 
they  sent  over  one  hundred  and  twelve  thousand 
dollars  worth  of  them.  Copra  is  now  the  leading 
export,  with  $16,514,749  worth  in  191 2,  an 
increase  of  nearly  fifty  per  cent  over  191 1. 
We  have  accomplished  an  industrial  revolu- 
tion in  the  Philippines. 


i 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  MONEY  COST  TO  AMERICA 

Since  1902  the  expense  of  the  Islands  to  the  United 
States  has  been  only  for  the  support  of  our  armed 
forces  —  How  that  expense  may  be  itemized  — 
Ten  million  dollars  per  annum  the  average  — 
Credits  that  must  be  made  to  the  account. 

In  any  comprehensive  study  of  our  future 
policy  toward  the  Philippines,  we  can  hardly 
avoid  computing  what  they  are  costing  us. 
Concerning  this,  most  widely  differing  state- 
ments have  been  made,  apparently,  however, 
not  because  of  any  real  difficulty  in  reaching 
substantial  accord,  but  for  the  reason  that  the 
various  computers  have  had  an  interest  in 
making  the  figures  large  or  small  to  support 
certain  preconceived  positions.  The  injection 
of  the  Philippine  problem  into  politics  has 
been  mainly  responsible  for  this  situation,  and 
as  an  illustration  we  may  take  a  recent  Congres- 
sional report  which  estimates  that  it  is  costing 
us  annually  twenty-six  million  dollars  to  main- 
tain our  armed  forces  in  the  Islands.  This 
enormous  total  is  easily  reached  by  multiply- 

183 


1 84      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ing  the  mean  number  of  soldiers  out  there  by- 
fifteen  hundred  dollars,  upon  the  basis  that 
''It  is  estimated  that  it  costs  the  government 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  annually  to  maintain 
each  soldier  in  the  foreign  service." 

The  surprising  thing  about  such  an  assertion 
is  that  the  total  is  made  so  small.  A  much 
larger  amount  could  just  as  well  have  been  pred- 
icated upon  that  phrase  "It  is  estimated." 
The  facts  are  substantially  as  follows  : 
For  the  last  ten  years,  we  have  averaged 
5097  men  in  the  Philippine  Scouts,  whose 
4971  enlisted  men  are  all  Filipinos,  paid  $7.50 
per  month,  just  half  of  what  our  American 
troops  receive.  In  a  special  report  to  the  Presi- 
dent, dated  January  23,  1908,  Secretary  of  War 
Taft  stated  that  the  Department  reckoned  five 
hundred  dollars  as  the  cost  in  toto  to  the  United 
States  for  each  man  in  the  Scouts.  The  pay  roll 
of  this  organization  for  191 1  was  ^1,019,562. 
The  report  of  the  Commissary-general  of  the 
army  puts  the  cost  of  the  Philippine  daily  ration 
at  $.2456.  This  means  half  a  million  dollars 
for  the  Scouts'  rations  for  the  year  191 1.  There 
are  also  the  various  allowances  for  clothing, 
marksmanship,  travel,  certificates  of  merit,  etc., 
which,  estimated  at  two  hundred  dollars  per  man 
of  the  total  force  of  5097,  adds  a  round  million 
to  the  previous  million  and  a  half  dollars,  giving 
us  two  and  a  half  million  dollars  as  the  cost  of 


THE  MONEY  COST  TO  AMERICA     185 

the  Scouts  to  the  United  States  for  the  year. 
Mr.  Taft  reckoned  at  the  rate  of  ^250  per  man, 
a  total  of  $2,548,500,  substantially  the  same 
figure. 

Turning  to  the  cost  of  our  regulars,  officers 
and  men,  13,501  of  whom  we  have  kept  out 
there  upon  the  average  for  the  past  ten  years, 
Mr.  Taft  says  in  the  same  report  that  the  ex- 
pense of  their  transportation  and  maintenance, 
over  what  these  items  would  be  had  the  troops 
remained  in  America,  he  estimates  as  $250  per 
man,  which  amounts  to  but  $3,375,250  per 
annum.  This  figure  appears  to  be  too  small, 
as  the  following  details  will  demonstrate. 

The  appropriation  by  Congress  in  191 1  for 
extra  pay  for  officers  and  men  of  the  army  be- 
cause in  foreign  service  was  $1,196,000.  Two 
thirds  of  the  force  thus  engaged  was  in  the 
Philippines.  We  may  therefore  roughly  con- 
sider that  these  last  used  a  similar  proportion  of 
the  appropriation,  or  eight  hundred  thousand 
dollars.  i 

The  average  cost  for  these  ten  years  for  the 
army  transport  service  between  the  various 
Philippine  Islands  was  eight  hundred  and  eighty- 
nine  thousand  dollars  per  annum.  To  this 
should  be  added  the  cost  of  troop  transportation 
across  the  Pacific  and  back ;  and  if  the  Phil- 
ippines be  charged  with  $2,198,000,  which  is 
two  thirds  of  the  average  annual  cost  for  the 


1 86      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ten  years  in  question,  of  all  our  ocean  trans- 
ports, it  is  a  maximum  estimate.  The  cost 
of  cabling  to  and  from  the  army  in  the  Is- 
lands has  averaged  forty-four  thousand  dol- 
lars per  annum  for  the  decade.  It  costs  two 
cents  per  diem  more  for  the  Philippine  ration 
than  for  the  ration  in  the  United  States,  or 
^92,994  a  year  for  the  12,739  enlisted  men  we 
have  averaged  yearly  since  1902.  We  have  av- 
eraged, for  the  same  period,  to  spend  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-five  thousand  dollars  each 
year  for  coast  and  geodetic  survey  work 
in  the  Archipelago.  To  this  should  be  added, 
as  an  outside  figure,  an  annual  depreciation 
of  ten  per  cent  of  the  original  cost  of  the 
fortifications  and  accessories  thereto,  and  of 
the  barracks  and  quarters  erected  in  the 
Islands  prior  to  August  20,  191 2,  their  com- 
bined figures,  according  to  the  War  Department, 
amounting  to  $15,327,753.  The  fortifications 
cost  $4,494,305,  and  the  barracks  and  quarters, 
$10,833,448.  The  figure  for  depreciation  and 
upkeep  is  $1,532,775.  If  all  these  items  are 
added,  they  total  $5,731,769.  Allowances  to 
the  extent  of  some  three  hundred  and  twenty- 
eight  thousand  dollars  for  officers'  quarters  (com- 
puted at  thirty-six  dollars  per  month,  for  three 
rooms,  for  each  of  the  761  officers)  and  forty 
thousand  dollars,  to  the  same  number,  for  fuel 
and  light,  should  be  added.     The  total  is  now 


THE  MONEY  COST  TO  AMERICA     187 

increased  to  ^6,099,769,  and  adding  the  two 
and  a  half  million  dollars  that  the  Scouts  cost 
us,  as  admitted  by  Mr.  Taft,  whose  interest  it 
is  to  make  the  figure  as  low  as  possible,  we 
have  the  annual  average  cost  of  the  Philip- 
pines to  us  for  the  past  ten  years  as  ^8,599,769. 
If  we  allow  fifteen  per  cent  and  approximately 
a  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  for  extras  and  good 
measure,  the  gross  is  ten  million  dollars.  This 
is  certainly  an  outside  estimate. 

There  are  other  figures  that  should  be  re- 
membered. For  example,  we  spent  one  hundred 
and  sixty-nine  million  dollars  upon  our  forces 
in  the  Islands  from  June  30,  1898,  to  July  i, 
1902.^  Then  we  voted  three  million  dollars 
to  the  natives,  when  their  carabaos  were  killed 
by  the  rinderpest  in  1902-1903.  Congress  also 
donated  three  hundred  and  fifty-one  thousand 
dollars  to  aid  the  Insular  Government  in  com- 
pleting its  census.  If  to  these  figures  we  add  a 
hundred  million  dollars  for  the  total  running 
expenses,  as  just  computed  above,  for  the  last 
ten  years,  and  ^15,327,753  as  the  cost  of  the 
fortifications,  barracks,  and  quarters,  the  total 
cost  of  the  Islands  to  us  up  to  June  30,  191 2, 
is  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven  million  dollars. 

If  anybody  thinks  that  if  we  did  not  have  the 
Islands  we  should  reduce  our  army  by  discharg- 

^  Congressional  Record,  February  25,  1908;  speech  of  J.  L. 
Slayden,  pp.  2532  et  seq. 


1 88      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

ing  therefrom  the  regulars  we  keep  in  the  Phil- 
ippines, he  may  increase  the  ten  million  dollars 
and  the  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven  million 
dollars  by  the  proper  figure.  But  it  is  rather 
idle  to  assume  anything  of  that  character. 
Whether  the  army  would  or  would  not  be  reduced 
is  entirely  in  the  keeping  of  Congress  alone.  The 
weight  of  the  evidence  is  that  the  American  peo- 
ple will  not  now  favor  any  reduction  of  our  army. 
Certainly,  irrespective  of  the  Philippines,  our  for- 
eign affairs  are  growing  more  and  more  delicate, 
especially  to  the  south  of  us  and  in  China.  The 
Spanish  War  taught  us  the  foolhardiness  of  too 
small  a  regular  force,  and  the  lessons  of  that 
conflict  are  not  yet  dim. 

As  for  the  additional  naval  expense  which 
may  be  thought  to  have  been  undertaken  by 
reason  of  the  possession  of  the  Islands,  that  is 
negligible,  for  it  is  evident  that  we  keep  no 
greater  naval  force  in  the  Far  East  than  we 
should  anyhow.  For  many  years  we  have 
maintained  the  Pacific  Fleet,  and  everybody 
now  realizes  that  it  must  probably  be  increased 
to  the  size  of  that  in  the  Atlantic,  for  it  will 
be  but  a  short  time,  as  the  history  of  nations 
computes  time,  when  our  western  coast  will  be 
as  important  from  a  national  point  of  view  as  is 
the  eastern  seaboard  to-day. 

There  are,  too,  important  credits  that  we 
must  give  to  this  account.     Upon  at  least  two 


THE  MONEY  COST  TO  AMERICA     189 

occasions  we  have  put  men  very  promptly  into 
China  because  we  had  them  in  Manila.  Each 
was  a  most  critical  period.  It  may  entertain 
some  people  to  try  to  put  into  figures  just  how 
many  dollars  we  saved  by  having  regiments  on 
the  China  coast  within  fifty  hours  of  these 
particular  outbreaks  instead  of  after  thirty 
days,  the  usual  time  consumed  in  transporting 
troops  across  the  Pacific,  assuming  that  we 
have  them  at  the  port  of  depL  rture.  Inability 
upon  our  part  to  have  done  our  full  share 
in  the  two  instances  referred  to  might  very 
easily  have  swung  the  balance  of  power  in  the 
Far  East  farther  away  from  us  and  toward  the 
nations  whose  troops  were  on  the  ground.  We 
have  maintained  the  "Open  Door"  in  China 
because  we  have  had,  upon  every  occasion 
when  it  seemed  about  to  be  closed,  first,  as 
much  of  a  force  there  as  anybody  else,  and, 
second,  our  occupation  of  the  Philippines  gave 
us  substantial  reason  for  asserting  a  command- 
ing attitude  in  anything  affecting  that  region. 
If  one  try  to  estimate  what  this  dominating 
position  be  worth  in  money  to  America,  he 
will  soon  find  himself  figuring  in  the  hundreds 
of  millions. 

Then  there  is  the  money  value  of  knowing 
how  to  handle  troops  in  the  tropical  zone,  and 
of  having  an  efficient  transport  service,  in- 
stead of  having  to  make  one,  as  had  to  be  done 


190      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

in  1898.  At  that  time  we  wasted  large  sums 
because  we  lacked  this  knowledge ;  we  killed 
hundreds  of  men  by  disease. 

Disallowing  these  offsets,  at  the  very  most 
the  Islands  have  cost  us  ten  million  dollars 
per  annum  for  the  last  decade ;  but  for  that 
sum,  our  achievements  in  these  distant  lands 
as  described  in  the  preceding  chapters,  unless 
the  contrary  appears  from  the  context,  have 
cost  the  United  States  nothing.  They  have  all 
been  liquidated  from  funds  of  the  Insular 
Government. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913 

Our  policy  In  191 3 — The  gente  illustrada  opposed 
to  introduction  of  necessary  capital  —  The  clamor 
for  independence  —  Consideration  of  the  three 
possible  courses  open  to  the  United  States  — 
Evidences  of  progress  —  Consequences  of  our 
continued  occupation  —  The  uncertainties  of  the 
future. 

As  the  foregoing  chapters  have  set  out,  we 
have  performed  veritable  prodigies  of  altruism. 
Unquestionably  we  have  done  more  for  the  mass 
of  the  Filipinos  than  any  other  nation  ever  did 
for  a  colony ;  and  yet  we  have  hardly  made  a 
beginning,  so  vast  is  the  task. 

The  present  governor-general,  Forbes,  thus 
stated  his  views  of  the  situation  confronting 
us  at  the  time  of  his  inauguration : 


<( 


'Analyzing  the  Instructions  of  President 
McKInley,  we  may  fairly  take  as  the  goal  toward 
v/hich  we  are  to  steer,  the  happiness,  peace,  and 
prosperity  of  the  Philippine  people.  In  so 
far  as  the  people  are  to-day  happy,  peaceful, 
and  prosperous,  we  have  succeeded ;    in  so  far 

191 


192      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

as  the  people  do  not  enjoy  these  blessings,  we 
have  not  yet  achieved  success.  The  people 
are  to-day  peaceful.  We  can  concentrate  our 
attention  in  bringing  them  prosperity,  secure 
in  the  belief  that  under  just  and  equitable 
laws,  under  a  wise  and  firm  government,  with 
that  freedom  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  worship, 
of  labor,  and  of  opportunity  which  now  pre- 
vail, happiness  will  not  be  found  far  away  when 
the  means  of  procuring  it  are  abundantly  at  hand,     j 

"Here  is  a  climate  particularly  favorable  ' 
for  some  classes  of  products  and  capable  of 
yielding  vast  returns  to  honest  and  intelligent 
expenditure  of  effort,  and  yet  we  have  a  people  ^ 
bemoaning  their  poverty  and  living  from  day  1 
to  day  without  those  reserve  supplies  so  neces- 
sary where  crops  are  uncertain  [In  191 1,  rice, 
the  principal  article  of  food,  was  imported  into 
the  Islands  to  the  value  of  ^6,560,000.  —  F.  C], 
without  the  alleviation  from  suffering  which 
m.odern  medicines  and  surgery  can  give,  with- 
out the  nourishing  kinds  of  food  so  necessary 
to  build  up  the  strength  of  the  body,  without 
houses  built  to  withstand  the  elements,  without, 
in  fact,  most  of  those  things  which  modern 
civilization  believes  to  be  necessary  for  the 
happiness  of  a  community. 

"An  analysis  of  the  fundamental  conditions 
of  life  reveals  in  part  the  reasons  for  these 
conditions.  A  very  large  proportion  of  the 
people  have  been  held  in  that  primitive  condi- 
tion where  each  man  supplied  all  of  the  things 
necessary  for  his  own  use  and  got  along  with 
what  he  could  personally  produce.  We  must 
bend  our  efforts  to  advance  the  day  when  each 


THE   PROBL  >i3  193 

individual    supplies    the    .a  uui-^:.  ch    he    is 

best  fitted  to  produce,  which  he  :^t  's  to  his 
fellow  men,  and  uses  the  nriv  -'^  ^■"  uned  to 
purchase  of  others  the  things  vax.-..-i  -.i  "y  can 
produce  better  and  cheaper  t ^-  ^  ^  "'^  '  '  his  is 
the    essence    of    trade,    and    tLiu    -^ui  1   of 

affairs  is  impossible  without  ecc"iomi<  ^i  means 
of  transportation,  hitherto  wofull^  lacking. 

"Our  success  in  accomplishing  our  principal 
object  in  the  Islands,  —  namely,  that  of  better- 
ing the  conditions  of  the  people,  —  may  be 
best  measured  by  the  increase  from  time  to 
time  in  the  rate  of  wages,  and  the  value  of  im- 
ports and  exports. 

"What  is  needed  here  is  capital. 

"Let  us  turn  our  attention  to  a  few  compara- 
tive figures. 

"The  total  population  of  Hawaii  is  198,000 
people  or  about  one  fortieth  of  the  population 
of  the  Philippine  Islands,  now  approximately 
eight  millions.  The  total  exports  from  Ha- 
waii in  1907  were  $29,000,000.  The  total  ex- 
ports from  the  Philippine  Islands  for  the  same 
year  were  $34,000,000.  In  other  words,  Ha- 
waii produced  for  export  approximately  thirty- 
six  times  as  much  per  capita  as  did  the  Philip- 
pine Islands. 

"This  is  not  because  the  laborers  are  superior, 
as  Hawaii  has  come  here  in  search  of  laborers 
and  reports  that  those  few  whom  they  have 
obtained  are  equal  to  their  Japanese,  Korean, 
and  other  laborers.  Porto  Rico  has  one  mil- 
lion people,  or  one  eighth  the  population  of 
the  Philippine  Islands,  and  in  1907  its  exports 
were  $27,000,000. 


194      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

"Porto  Ryco  evidently  does  not  exercise 
the  same  degree  of  economy  in  the  use  of  its 
labor  as  does  Hawaii,  for  it  produces  only  one 
sixth  as  much  fer  capita  for  export,  and  still 
Porto  Rico  exports  six  times  as  much  per  capita 
as  do  the  people  of  the  Philippine  Islands. 
Were  these  Islands  to  produce  for  sale  to  other 
countries  as  much  per  capita  as  Porto  Rico, 
the  total  exports  would  be  $216,000,000.  Were 
they  to  produce  as  much  per  capita  as  Hawaii, 
the  total  exports  would  be  ^1,179,000,000  a  year. 

"The  explanation  of  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  Hawaii  has  an  abundance  of  capital,  em- 
ploys modern  methods  of  cultivation  and  manu- 
facture, modern  freight-handling  devices,  and 
suitable  and  adequate  steamship  and  railroad 
facilities.  In  other  words,  in  Hawaii  the  work 
of  the  laborer  counts ;  in  the  Philippine  Is- 
lands it  does  not.  No,  it  is  not  labor  that 
is  wanted  here,  it  is  capital.  .  .  .  [Governor 
Forbes  might  have  added  a  comparison  with 
Java,  which  with  less  than  half  as  much  terri- 
tory not  only  supports  four  times  as  many 
people,  exports,  and  does  not  import  foodstuffs, 
but  sends  about  $100,000,000  annually  to  Hol- 
land in  profits.  —  F.  C.] 

"I  should  like  to  see  every  one  of  the  two 
million  children  of  school  age  in  these  Islands 
receiving  an  education.  The  thought  is  griev- 
ous that  any  boy  or  girl  in  the  Philippine 
Islands  wanting  to  have  an  education  should 
be  unable  to  secure  it  because  of  failure  of  the 
government  to  provide  facilities,  and  yet  the 
resources  of  the  Islands  have  not  developed  to 
that  point  where  I  feel  we  are  justified  in  largely 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  195 

increasing  the  appropriation  for  education. 
When  the  time  comes  that  facilities  can  be 
available,  I  shall  not  be  opposed  to  a  law  pro- 
viding for  compulsory  education.  The  amount 
of  education  we  shall  be  able  to  accomplish 
in  ten  years  will  be  very  much  greater  if  we 
devote  our  first  money  toward  increasing  the 
wealth  of  the  people  and  later  using  the  result- 
ing increase  of  revenues  for  extending  our  edu- 
cational facilities.  I  liken  the  work  of  the 
government  on  irrigation  and  improvement  of 
transportation  to  cutting  the  strings  which 
close  the  mouth  of  a  purse  of  gold.  The  gold 
will  pour  forth  and  yield  enough  for  all." 

While  the  recent  remarkable  business  expan- 
sion that  has  occurred  in  the  Islands  since  those 
words  were  spoken  would  vary  this  statement 
somewhat,  I  can  devise  none  other  which,  upon 
the  whole,  appears  to  me  so  well  to  describe 
the  Philippine  Problem  in  191 3  and  my  compre- 
hension of  our  present  policy  with  respect  to  it. 

This  policy  to  seek  capital  is  bitterly  opposed 
by  the  more  prominent  of  the  gente  illustrada. 
Their  position  was  first  made  evident  in  the 
matter  of  the  Friar  Lands,  in  Chapter  Four. 

Upon  the  6th  of  December,  1910,  the 
Philippine  Assembly  passed  a  resolution  from 
which  the  following  is  an  extract : 

"  RESOLVED,  That  the  Philippine  Assembly 
do,  and  hereby  does,  declare,  without  entering 
upon  a  discussion  of  the  legahty  or  illegaUty  of 


196      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  matter,  that  the  sale  in  large  and  unlimited 
tracts  of  the  so-called  friar  estates  to  great  cor- 
porations for  their  exploitation  is  contrary  to  the 
will,  the  sentiment,  and  the  interests  of  the 
Philippine  people." 

In  a  speech  upon  the  floor  of  the  House  in 
Washington  upon  May  i,  1912,  Hon.  Manuel 
L.  Quezon,  one  of  the  two  Filipino  Resident 
Commissioners  to  that  body,  said  : 

"I  am  authorized  to  say,  Mr.  Speaker,  and 
standing  here  now  I  do  say,  that  the  Filipino 
people  would  rather  pay  from  general  taxation, 
and  if  necessary  from  voluntary  contributions, 
every  cent  that  has  been  spent  by  the  Philip- 
pine Government  for  the  purchase  of  these 
lands  than  to  see  them  sold  to  individuals  or 
corporations  for  exploitation.  And  the  reason 
for  this,  if  I  am  to  express  it  in  a  few  words, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  following  paragraph :  We 
do  not  want  vast  landed  estates  created  there. 
We  do  want  a  thrifty,  hardy,  land-owning 
body  of  citizens.  Patriotism,  thrift,  and  love 
of  country  does  not  exist  in  the  breast  of  the 
peon  who  resides  on  a  great  sugar  plantation, 
but  rather  thrives  in  the  heart  of  the  man  whose 
feet  are  firmly  planted  in  his  own  land.  .  .  . 
Their  views  (those  of  the  Philippine  Commis- 
sion) are  that  the  sooner  the  natural  resources 
of  the  Philippines  are  developed,  the  better 
for  the  Filipinos  themselves ;  that  the  great 
need  of  the  islands  is  capital,  and  that  all 
possible  means  must  be  employed  to  bring 
into  the  islands  large  amounts  of  capital ;    and 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  197 

that  one  of  these  means  is  to  permit  the  pur- 
chase, ownership,  and  holding  of  great  land 
estates.  ...  In  the  long  run,  they  (great 
corporations)  monopolize  the  wealth  of  the 
country  and  deprive  the  large  majority  of  the 
inhabitants  of  their  just  share  of  such  wealth. 
This  being  so,  the  Filipinos  would  rather  keep 
on  the  statute  books  of  the  Philippines  their 
present  land  laws  than  to  permit,  under  the 
pretense  of  development,  the  concentration  in 
a  few  hands  of  the  resources  of  their  country." 

This  position  attracted  to  its  support  the 
active  American  foes  of  everything  we  have 
ever  attempted  in  the  Islands;  but  there  was 
another  argument  produced  that  had  still  more 
weight  with  these  fellow  citizens  of  ours,  and 
that  was  that  the  introduction  of  capital  would 
forever  destroy  any  hope  of  independence  for 
the  Philippines. 

The  record  of  the  serious  attempt  for  imme- 
diate independence  begins  with  the  passage 
through  the  Assembl}^  of  the  resolution,  in 
May,  1910: 


a 


Whereas  the  Philippine  Assembly,  as  the 
legitimate  representative  of  the  Filipino  people, 
must  be  the  faithful  echo  of  what  the  latter 
thinks  and  feels  :   and 

'^Whereas  the  Philippine  nation,  being  posi- 
tively convinced  that  it  possesses  the  actual 
capacity  for  self-government  as  a  civilized 
nation,  aspires  ardently  to  be  independent, 
and,  trusting  in  the  justice  and  in  the  tradi- 


198       THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

tion  of  the  Nation  that  now  directs  the  fate  and 
destiny  of  the  Filipinos,  anxiously  hopes  to 
obtain  it  as  soon  as  practicable  —  immediately, 
if  that  be  possible  —  from  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  of  America  ;   and 

"  Whereas  in  behalf  of  the  good  of  the  Philip- 
pines it  is  necessary  that  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  of  America  be  informed  by  the 
people  of  the  Philippines  itself  concerning  the 
points  stated  above  :    Now,  therefore,  be  it 

"RESOLVED,  That  the  Philippine  Assembly 
shall,  by  means  of  a  memorial,  lay  at  once  and 
without  delay  before  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  of  America  the  said  aptitude,  desire,  and 
expectation  of  the  Philippine  nation." 

In  addition,  both  of  the  political  parties, 
one  always  opposed  to  our  occupation  and  the 
other  heretofore  in  favor  of  it  for  some  time  to 
come,  adopted  resolutions  to  the  same  purport 
through  their  respective  representatives  in  the 
Assembly,  while  Osmeiia,  the  exceedingly  able 
presiding  officer  of  that  body,  thus  stated  the 
gente  illustrada  attitude  as  he  addressed  it  at  the 
close  of  its  initial  session  : 

"We  Filipinos  desire  national  Independence, 
a  desire  existing  before  our  second  uprising 
against  Spain  and  continuing  thereafter  equally 
under  the  shock  of  arms  and  the  aegis  of  peace. 
We  believe  ourselves  capable  of  ruling  our  own 
destinies.  The  phrase  'immediate  independ- 
ence,' inscribed  upon  the  banner  of  the  majority, 
is  neither  a  new  inscription  nor  a  new  ideal. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   191 3  199 

'Immediate  Independence'  is  the  motto  of  our 
country  to-day  and  her  motto  forever,  for  it 
incarnates  and  signifies  her  true  aspiration, 
that  aspiration  which  has  suffered  neither 
change  nor  decay  and  which  her  children 
through  all  vicissitudes  and  adversities  have 
never  forgotten  for  a  single  moment;  aye,  not 
even  in  the  moment  of  swearing  allegiance,  for 
that  allegiance  involves  no  repudiation  of  our 
ideals,  and  we  believe  allegiance  to  America 
still  permits  us  to  be  faithful  to  our  conscience 
as  men  and  to  our  sacred  desire  for  national 
independence. 

*' Permit  me,  gentlemen  of  the  Chamber, 
to  declare  solemnly  before  God  and  before  the 
world,  upon  my  conscience  as  a  deputy  and 
representative  of  my  compatriots,  and  under 
my  responsibility  as  president  of  this  Chamber, 
that  we  believe  the  people  desire  independence, 
that  it  believes  itself  capable  of  leading  an 
orderly  existence,  efficient  both  in  internal  and 
external  affairs,  as  a  member  of  the  free  and 
civilized  nations ;  and  that  we  believe  that  if 
at  this  moment  the  United  States  should  grant 
the  suit  of  the  Filipino  people  for  liberty,  it 
could  discharge  to  the  full  its  obligations 
toward  itself  and  toward  others,  without  detri- 
ment to  liberty,  to  law,  or  to  justice." 

These  extracts  appear  fairly  to  express  the 
views  of  the  gente  illustrada,  the  ten  per  cent 
who  want  to  acquire  the  government  of  the 
other  ninety  per  cent  who  would  thus  be  com- 
pletely at  their  mercy. 


200      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

With  these  statements  as  a  text,  Quezon,  in 
the  speech  before  the  American  House,  from 
which  extracts  have  already  been  made,  gave 
us  sufficient  warning  of  the  gente  illustrada 
opposition  to  our  policy  in  the  Islands,  in  these 
words : 

"There  are  many  American  officials  in  the 
Philippine  Government  and  in  the  United 
States  who,  in  their  dealings  with  the  Islands 
and  their  people,  are  proceeding  upon  the  theory 
that  there  is  no  real  desire  upon  the  part  of  this 
Government  ever  to  relinquish  its  control  over 
the  Philippines.  Working  under  this,  I  hope, 
misapprehension,  or  perhaps  deliberately  try- 
ing to  bring  about  a  condition  of  affairs  that 
will  force  this  Government  to  retain  the  islands, 
these  officials  are  endeavoring  to  do  every- 
thing in  their  power  which,  in  their  opinion, 
will  facilitate  and  Insure  the  accomplishment 
of  that  end. 

"This,  Mr.  Speaker,  explains  satisfactorily 
the  unyielding  attitude  of  the  Philippine  Com- 
mission and  of  those  who  support  its  policy 
of  inducing  to  come  Into  the  Islands  as  much 
American  capital  as  possible.  They  know 
that  those  in  this  country  who  invest  their 
money  In  the  Philippines  in  lands,  in  factories, 
in  mines,  or  in  any  other  enterprise  will  struggle 
and  do  their  best  to  defeat  any  legislation  pur- 
porting to  recognize  Philippine  independence, 
not  precisely  because  of  their  lack  of  confidence 
in  the  ability  of  the  Filipino  people  to  govern 
themselves  and  to  protect  the  rights  and  prop- 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  201 

ertles  established  in  the  islands,  but  because 
their  investments  will  be  safer  under  the  joint 
guaranty  and  protection  of  both  the  Philip- 
pine Government  and  the  Government  of  the 
United  States.  .  .  . 

"Do  you  believe,  Mr.  Speaker,  that  any  one 
investor  would  ever,  if  he  could  prevent  it, 
permit  the  United  States  to  escape  from  its 
responsibility  ? 

"For  this  reason,  If  we  had  now,  or  should 
we  have,  before  any  definite  policy  regarding 
the  future  connection  between  the  Philippines 
and  the  United  States  is  officially  announced, 
many  American  capitalists  interested  in  the 
Philippines,  the  inevitable  result  would  be 
the  permanent  retention  of  the  islands." 

To  the  American  allies  of  the  gente  illustrada 
this  contention  appealed,  and  they  have  labored 
unceasingly  to  discourage  our  countrymen  from 
making  heavy  investments  in  the  Islands. 
As  a  tribute  to  their  astuteness  and  indefatiga- 
bility  the  Islands  are  likely  to  lose  in  the  Friar 
Lands  some  millions  of  dollars  which  the  natives 
must  make  up  by  taxation.  More  recently 
these  Americans  have  been  issuing  warnings 
to  individuals  who  were  considering  large 
Philippine  investments.  For  example,  in  the 
summer  of  191 2,  when  Governor  Forbes  was 
in  America,  he  met  a  large  number  of  the 
most  prominent  capitalists  in  New  York  at  a 
dinner  and  explained  to  them  how  capital  was 
needed  in  the  Archipelago  and  how  it  could 


202      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

be  made  to  pay.  The  next  day  each  gentleman 
who  had  been  present  and  who  could  be  reached 
received  a  telegram  from  the  chief  official  of 
an  American  Anti-Imperialist  organization,  set- 
ting forth  the  dangers  of  Philippine  investment : 
and  tilmid  as  capital  is,  very  likely  Governor 
Forbes's  efforts  with  those  particular  men  will 
be  fruitless. 

How  much  further  this  aggressive  campaign 
against  capital  may  extend,  or  where  it  may. 
erupt  next,  nobody  can  foresee ;  but  those  be- 
hind it  do  not  need  to  be  informed  that  if  it  be 
persisted  in  very  long  and  with  the  means  at 
hand,  there  soon  will  be  no  prospective  in- 
vestors, and  Governor  Forbes's  plans  by  which 
he  believes  he  can  secure  capital  enough  to 
increase  the  revenues  of  the  Insular  Govern- 
ment so  that  he  can  put  into  the  schools  the 
one  million  and  a  half  children  who  cannot 
now  have  this  privilege  because  of  lack  of  funds, 
will  be  checkmated.  This  will  halt  the  most 
powerful  instrument  for  the  regeneration  of 
the  Filipino.  The  gente  illustrada  or  some  of 
the  most  prominent  of  them,  at  least,  and  their 
American  allies  in  the  United  States,  assert 
that  it  shall  remain  halted  until  independence 
or  some  promise  of  it  be  secured. 

In  this  situation,  the  United  States  may 
make  choice  of  but  three  courses.  They  may 
altogether  withdraw,  withdraw  partly,  or  go  on 


I 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  203 

as  we    have    been     proceeding    for   the    past 
decade. 

A  complete  withdrawal  would  mean  that  we 
would  have  no  more  to  do  with  the  Insular 
Government  than  now  has  Great  Britain, 
France,  Belgium,  or  Germany,  each  of  which 
has  very  large  investments  and  commercial 
interests  in  the  Philippines.  Besides  the  real 
property  which  we  should  have  there  out  of 
our  expenditures  in  the  Islands  of  some  three 
hundred  million  dollars  and  some  other  millions 
of  private  American  investments,  there  would 
be  several  thousand  Americans  with  their 
families  who  would  be  left  behind,  do  the  best 
we  might.  Their  all  is  in  their  little  enter- 
prises, and  always,  no  matter  in  what  country 
they  are  likely  to  be  massacred,  they  refuse  to 
leave.  They  cannot  leave  as  a  matter  of 
economics;  and  besides,  as  somebody  has  so 
well  said,  they  are  not  of  a  running  stock. 

So,  overleaping  the  chagrin  we  should  have  at 
abandoning  to  its  fate  the  high  purpose  we  have 
had  to  develop  these  lands  only  for  the  benefit 
of  their  natives,  the  United  States  would  have 
very  great  interests  in  the  Philippines,  no  matter 
how  hard  we  might  endeavor  to  free  ourselves 
from  them.  And  these  interests  would  prob- 
ably, in  each  item,  be  ten  times  as  great  as 
the  corresponding  one  in  the  account  between  the 
Philippines  and  any  other  of  the  Great  Powers. 


204      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

If  we  may  learn  from  the  past,  France, 
Germany,  and  Great  Britain  would  send  men- 
of-war  to  Manila  the  moment  we  announced 
that  we  were  to  leave  the  Islands  to  the  Filipinos. 
They  were  all  there  to  see  that  their  particular 
interests  were  protected  in  1898,  Germany 
alone  having  five  cruisers  anchored  beside 
Dewey's  fleet  for  several  months.  The  Fili- 
pinos have  no  ships  of  war,  no  army,  no  arms. 
These  Islands  undoubtedly  have  resources  of 
great  wealth.  In  time  of  war  in  the  Far 
East,  their  possession  as  a  base  would  be  of 
very  great  advantage  as  against  other  nations 
not  so  fortunate. 

Nations  sometimes  take  things  just  because 
they  want  them.  Germany  is  generally  cred- 
ited with  taking  all  the  territory  she  can 
secure,  because  she  must  do  so  to  provide  for 
her  necessary  commercial  development.  This 
is  likewise  true  of  Japan. 

At  the  least  Imminent  danger  to  the  Philip- 
pine Interests  of  any  of  the  Great  Powers,  that 
instant  would  see  her  forces  landed  to  protect 
her  property  and  her  people.  There  is  small 
chance  that  the  Islands,  under  such  circum- 
stances, could  retain  their  autonomy.  There 
is  but  little  more  likelihood  that  any  nation 
now  in  the  Far  East  would  stay  her  hand  even 
for  so  slight  an  excuse  as  that  mentioned. 
And  when  any  other  nation  does  take  them, 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  20 


r- 


such  effort  as  ours  to  uplift  them  Is  at  an  end. 
No  other  nation  believes  in  treating  a  colony 
as  we  have  treated  the  Philippines.  The  na- 
tives would  be  kept  ignorant  because  they 
can  thus  be  controlled  easiest  and  least  ex- 
pensively. But  a  still  more  potent  reason 
even  for  keeping  the  people  in  ignorance  would 
be  this  :  that  thus  they  could  best  be  handled 
so  as  to  become  a  paying  colony.  In  other 
words,  any  other  nation  except  this  one  would 
handle  the  colony  mainly  for  the  interest  of  the 
dominant  power.  That  is  why  these  other 
nations  are  In  the  colonizing  business. 

With  our  Improvements  in  the  possession  of 
the  new  owner,  she  would  have  little  difficulty 
in  extracting  money  from  her  acquisition  the 
moment  she  stopped  the  continuance  of  the 
great  expenditures  for  schools,  roads,  and 
harbors  that  the  Insular  Government  has  an- 
nually been  appropriating.  To  a  merciless 
master,  who  Is  intelligent,  the  Philippines  are 
as  rich  a  prize  as  the  world  now  affords. 

To  presume  that  we  are  to  give  these  lands 
to  some  other  Power  that  is  bound  to  use  them 
only  as  an  investment  and  as  a  means  of  ob- 
taining advantage  over  us  or  over  some  other 
Power  friendly  to  us,  in  the  event  of  Asiatic 
disturbances  that  might  Involve  the  whole 
world  —  and  which  our  relinquishment  of  the 
Philippines    might    very    well    cause,    through 


2o6      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

disturbing  the  delicate  balance  by  which  the 
statu  quo  in  Far  Eastern  affairs  Is  now  main- 
tained —  is  almost  fantastic.  The  American 
people  might  consider  a  proposal  that  would 
give  the  Islands  to  the  Filipinos.  But  to  ex- 
pect that  we  shall  give  them  to  some  rival  is 
quite  another  affair.  Indeed,  abandonment 
of  the  Islands  Is  so  manifestly  repugnant  to 
everybody  that  the  most  bitter  American 
opponents  of  our  Philippine  policy  have  never 
even  suggested  Independence  unless  it  be 
coupled  with  neutralization.  No  Filipino  has 
ever  asked  it  upon  any  other  basis.  In  a  formal 
petition  for  immediate  Independence  presented 
to  the  American  Congress  on  May  14,  1910, 
Mr.  Quezon,  acting  under  Instructions  of  the 
Philippine  Assembly,  stated : 

"As  a  safeguard  of  the  independence  of  the 
Philippines,  the  Filipinos  ask  of  the  American 
people  their  good  offices  in  favor  of  the  neu- 
tralization of  the  Islands.  The  Filipinos  firmly 
believe  that  in  order  to  consummate  the  great 
work  Inaugurated  by  the  United  States  in  those 
islands  she  will  not  refuse  to  take  the  necessary 
steps  to  bring  about  the  agreements  of  the 
great  nations  of  the  world  for  the  neutralization 
of  the  Archipelago." 

The  leading  Anti-Imperialist  In  the  United 
States,  Moorfield  Storey,  one  of  the  ablest 
lawyers  in  the  English-speaking   world,  advo- 


THE   PROBLEM  IN    1913  207 

cated  the  views  just  recorded  before  the  House 
Committee  on  Insular  Affairs,  saying : 

"That  it  is  feasible  to  obtain  such  an  agree- 
ment is,  I  think,  hardly  doubtful.  .  .  . 

"Moreover,  what  we  are  dealing  with,  that 
which  we  are  afraid  of,  is  not  so  much  the 
anxiety  on  the  part  of  any  foreign  nation  to 
take  the  Philippine  Islands  because  it  wants 
the  islands,  as  it  is  the  fear  that  one  nation  may 
take  them  in  order  to  prevent  another  nation 
from  taking  them.  .  .  .  Probably  if  England 
should  be  assured  that  Germany  would  not  get 
them,  and  Germany  that  France  would  not 
get  them,  and  France  that  no  other  foreign 
power  would  get  them,  they  would  be  glad  to 
agree  that  these  islands  should  become  inde- 
pendent. They  would  be  protected  by  an 
international  agreement  against  their  being 
absorbed  by  any  rival." 

Messrs.  Storey  and  Quezon,  backed  by  the 
Philippine  Assembly,  undoubtedly  have  pre- 
sented the  sentiments  and  desires  of  those 
working  for  independence,  and  as  not  even  they 
have  expressed  any  wish  for  independence  with- 
out neutralization,  the  subject  is  worthy  of  no 
further  space  than  is  required  to  note  that  their 
position  is  in  itself  considerable  of  a  confession. 
The  careful  student  would  at  once  wonder  if 
people  who  announce  they  dare  not  try  to  main- 
tain themselves  among  the  family  of  nations  are 
able  to  maintain  any  stable  government  at  all. 


2o8      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

The  only  radical  change,  then,  from  our 
present  relationship  to  the  Islands  that  is  open 
to  us  is  the  qualified  or  limited  withdrawal. 

The  enthusiastic  advocates  —  and  there  are 
many  —  of  this  way  which  they  think  will 
lighten  our  burdens  and  aid  the  Filipinos 
seem  never  to  doubt  that  the  plan  is  feasible 
and  desirable.  A  careful  examination,  how- 
ever, of  the  actualities  of  the  problem  cannot 
leave  one  entirely  certain  of  the  soundness  of 
either  contention.  Certainly  neutralization  will 
not  be  secured  by  sending  out  reply  cards  with 
requests  for  assents  by  return  post;  that 
much  the  following  will  quickly  demonstrate, 
but  no  better  than  Mr.  Storey's  naive  suggestion 
above,  that  all  that  be  required  is  to  have  those 
inveterate  enemies  England  and  Germany,  and 
France  and  Germany  come  to  an  agreement. 
The  day  when  the  lion  and  the  lamb  would  He 
down  together  has  been  prophesied  for  some  two 
thousand  years  but  it  is  still  deferred. 

The  favorite  asserted  precedents  for  our 
proposal  of  neutralization  are  the  cases  of 
Switzerland,  Holland,  and  Belgium.  More  un- 
fortunate illustrations  cannot  be  found,  for 
there  is  no  important  analogy  between  these 
countries  and  the  Philippines.  The  difference 
that  is  so  radical  as  to  prevent  there  being  any 
real  resemblance  is  that  the  Continental  countries 
concerned  are  civilized  and  law-abiding  and  the 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   191 3  209 

Philippines  Is  not;  at  any  rate,  no  nation 
will  accept  It  as  such  after  we  recede  from  con- 
trol, until  it  be  proven.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that 
neither  England,  Japan,  Germany,  France, 
Belgium,  nor  Russia  will  agree  to  the  Integrity 
of  the  Philippines  until  they  know  just  what 
the  policies  and  future  of  the  Filipinos  are  to 
be,  and,  so  far  as  those  nations  have  Invest- 
ments and  citizens  in  the  Islands,  what  the  state 
of  law  and  order  is  to  be. 

Further,  when  we  ask  the  other  Powers  to 
agree  to  permit  the  Philippines  to  retain  their 
independence,  we  are  requesting  an  act  of  them 
that  is  a  distinct  sacrifice,  at  least  so  far  as 
the  nations  there  with  Investments  and  citizens 
are  concerned,  for  we  suggest  that  without 
recompense  of  any  character  they  consent  to 
an  exchange  of  the  security  of  their  Interests 
under  our  flag  for  the  insecurity  of  a  flag  with 
no  history  over  an  uncivilized  community. 

Such  a  proposal  is  almost  its  rejection.  It 
seems  quite  as  absurd  as  the  first  course  hereto- 
fore treated  —  abandonment. 

The  only  reasonable  neutralization,  from  the 
viewpoint  of  the  Powers,  would  be  one  that 
left  the  United  States  with  the  responsibility 
for  law  and  order  toward  the  property  and 
citizens  and  interests  of  all  other  nations. 
That  arrangement,  If  we  couple  with  It  a  sub- 
stantial withdrawal  of  our  present  control  of 


M 


2IO      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

the  natives,  means  that  we  shall  have  the  real 
responsibility  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world  for 
the  internal  conduct  of  the  Filipinos  without 
having  the  control  of  them.  We  should  have 
no  appointing  power  of  the  judiciary,  for  ex- 
ample, no  guaranty  that  justice  would  be 
meted  to  foreigners,  the  rock  upon  which  so 
many  international  friendships  have  split. 
We  should  have  no  control  of  their  foreign 
policy  or  acts  —  and  this  in  the  most  eruptive 
sphere  within  international  influence,  at  a  time 
when  every  great  Power  is  manoeuvering  so 
carefully  for  advantageous  positions  a  century 
hence  in  the  Orient  that  no  one  nation  is  per- 
mitted by  the  others  to  loan  money  to  any 
people  in  or  near  Asia.  And,  incidentally, 
when  rich  nations  fight  to  loan  money  to  a 
poor  one,  the  latter's  welfare  is  not  the  fore- 
most motive  of  the  would-be  creditors. 

In  this  position,  so  fraught  with  momentous 
possibilities,  in  the  very  center  of  the  theater 
of  action  for  all  the  commercial  nations  from 
now  on,  we  may,  to  help  the  Filipinos  or  re- 
lieve ourselves,  as  we  think,  become  responsible 
for  the  conduct  of  a  people  over  whom  we  have 
no  authority  — but  we  should  not  do  it  blindly. 
We  must  examine  the  specific  dangers,  and  the 
first  of  them  is  the  relations  with  Great  Britain 
—  that  is,  with  Japan. 

Under    what    has    been    called    the    Secret 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  211 

Treaty  between  Japan  and  England,  under- 
stood to  have  been  signed  on  August  12,  1905, 
the  two  countries  concluded  a  defensive  and 
offensive  alliance,  the  object  of  which,  in  the 
text  as  since  published,  is  : 

''  (a)  The  consolidation  and  maintenance  of 
the  general  peace  in  the  regions  of  Eastern  Asia 
and  India ; 

"  (b)  The  preservation  of  the  common  in- 
terests of  all  Powers  in  China  by  insuring  the 
independence  and  integrity  of  the  Chinese 
Empire  and  the  principle  of  equal  opportunities 
for  the  commerce  and  industry  of  all  nations 
in  China  ; 

"  (c)  The  maintenance  of  the  territorial  rights 
of  the  High  Contracting  Parties  in  the  regions 
of  Eastern  Asia  and  of  India,  and  the  defense 
of  their  special  interests  in  the  said  regions ;  .  .  . 

Article    II 

"  If  by  reason  of  unprovoked  attacks  or  aggres- 
sive action,  wherever  arising,  on  the  part  of 
any  Power  or  Powers,  either  High  Contracting 
Party  should  be  involved  in  war  In  defense  of 
its  territorial  rights  or  special  Interests  men- 
tioned in  the  preamble  of  this  Agreement,  the 
other  High  Contracting  Party  will  at  once  come 
to  the  assistance  of  Its  ally,  and  will  conduct 
the  war  in  common,  and  make  peace  in  mutual 
agreement  with  it." 

This  most  remarkable  document,  which 
reaches  the  acme  of  Japan's  diplomatic  achieve- 


212      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

ments,  as  extended  In  191 1,  will  remain  in  force 
until  July  13,  1921.  When  the  history  of  the 
great  American,  Henry  W.  Denison,  who  has 
been  Japan's  foreign  policy  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  be  written,  this  treaty  must  be  his 
greatest  work,  with  but  one  possible  exception, 
of  which  mention  will  soon  be  made. 

As  an  immediate  result  of  this  understanding, 
England  was  enabled  to  cut  her  naval  forces  in 
the  Far  East  to  the  minimum  and  leave  to  the 
land  of  the  Mikado  the  protection  of  all  Eng- 
lish interests  in  that  distant  region. 

So  it  is  with  Japan  that  we  must  deal  directly, 
when  English  interests  are  involved  in  the  Far 
East  —  and  Great  Britain  and  Germany  are  in 
a  bitter  race  for  commercial  control  of  the  re- 
gion involved.  For  this  struggle  Germany  has 
raised  the  number  of  her  Dreadnaughts  to  be 
ready  in  191 5  from  the  five  possessed  in  191 1, 
when  this  alliance  was  extended,  to  nineteen ; 
and  her  great  rival,  with  but  ten  In  191 1,  will 
have  twenty-six  in  two  years  from  January,  191 3. 

Dealing  with  Japan  and  Japanese  men-of- 
war  is  one  thing.  Dealing  at  a  time  of  great 
stress  with  Great  Britain  and  her  Dread- 
naughts  is  quite  another  affair;  and  yet,  it  is 
with  Japan  that  we  must  treat  concerning  Eng- 
land's interests,  as  the  Filipinos  may  become 
involved  in  them  when  we  permit  our  present 
wards  to  handle  their  own  foreign  affairs. 


THE   PROBLEM  IN   1913  213 

But  even  of  more  Import  is  the  further  fact 
that  Japan  has  a  very  great  Interest  upon  her 
own  account  in  the  Philippines,  much  greater, 
I  fear,  than  Americans  as  a  rule  appreciate. 

Japan  must  expand  or  starve.  All  the  Powers 
see  that  and  treat  it  as  a  basic  fact  in  any  move 
that  the  island  empire  endeavors  to  effect. 

Just  prior  to  the  opening  of  the  Japanese- 
Chinese  war,  which  showed  the  world  that 
Japan  was  indeed  a  world  power,  Formosa, 
then  owned  by  China,  and  Korea  and  Man- 
churia, which  were  certain  to  come  within  the 
sphere  of  the  impending  conflict,  were  overrun 
with  Japanese  soldiery,  who  mastered  the 
military  topography  of  these  territories. 

Just  prior  to  the  opening  of  the  war  by 
Japan  against  Russia,  ten  years  later,  all  the 
Asiatic  coast  belonging  to  Russia  or  any  other 
nation  that  might  become  the  theater  of  war, 
was  overrun  by  Japan  in  the  same  manner. 

When,  in  1906,  the  anti-Japanese  sentiment 
broke  out  on  our  .Pacific  coast,  California 
suddenly  found  herself  entertaining  more  Jap- 
anese men  than  she  had  been  aware  were  within 
her  boundaries. 

Officers  of  our  forces  In  the  Philippines  re- 
ported at  about  the  same  time  that  there  had 
arrived  in  the  Archipelago  a  large  number  of 
Japanese  soldiers  in  disguise,  usually  as  peddlers, 
who,  wherever  they  went  in  the  Islands,  were 


214      THE  PHILIPPINE    PROBLEM 

inciting  the  natives  against  us ;  and  the  secret 
service  reports  in  Manila  are  full  of  later  evi- 
dences of  this  character. 

Just  prior  to  the  disturbances  in  Mexico 
preceding  the  deposition  of  Diaz,  which  threat- 
ened for  many  weeks  to  compel  us  to  intervene, 
an  imposing  number  of  high  Japanese  army 
and  navy  officials  made  a  visit  to  the  City  of 
Mexico  and  for  some  weeks  entertained  in  a 
most  lavish  and  extravagant  manner  the  chief 
men  in  the  Mexican  Government.  When  the 
Madero  Revolution  broke  out,  but  a  little 
later,  our  army  officers  discovered  that  along 
the  Mexican  side  of  the  boundary,  between  that 
country  and  the  United  States,  the  entire  re- 
gion was  overrun  with  Japanese,  who  had  the 
set-up  of  soldiers,  numbering  in  the  aggregate, 
according  to  the  best  estimates,  several  thou- 
sand men,  and  perhaps  enough  to  make  an  army 
corps.  Our  officers  investigated  sufficiently  to 
learn  that  the  visitors  had  made  war  maps 
of  the  entire  boundary,  or  nearly  so,  showing 
all  the  fords  of  the  Rio  Grande,  where  water 
was  to  be  had,  etc.,  and  all  other  topographical 
information  such  as  armies  require. 

In  the  United  States,  at  the  same  period, 
Japanese  of  soldierly  appearance  were  dis- 
covered to  be  working  along  all  our  trans- 
continental railroads  as  section  men,  with  an 
intimate   knowledge   of  the   location   of  every 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  215 

bridge  by  which  the  East  could  be  cut  off 
from  the  West. 

At  or  about  the  same  time,  Russia  announced 
that  thereafter  she  would  extend  her  territorial 
waters  to  eight  miles  from  her  coast  line,  five 
miles  beyond  the  prior  international  limits. 
This  was  bound  to  work  great  hardship  on 
Japanese  fishing  interests  and,  because  of  the 
extent  to  which  Japan  is  dependent  upon  fish 
for  food,  was  an  extremely  important  matter 
to  that  country,  against  which  it  was  princi- 
pally aimed.  England,  too,  stood  to  lose 
heavily  by  the  new  limit,  and  both  injured 
nations  prepared  to  make  violent  protest. 

The  diplomatic  world  was  aroused.  But 
just  at  this  juncture  the  anti-Russian  agita- 
tion broke  out  in  the  United  States,  and  in 
rather  incendiary  terms  we  notified  Russia 
that  we  should  abrogate  the  1832  commercial 
treaty,  because  of  her  alleged  mistreatment  of 
American  Jews. 

No  sooner  had  this  action  taken  place  than 
St.  Petersburg  was  overrun  with  visiting  Jap- 
anese, high  officials  in  the  army  and  navy, 
diplomats,  committees  of  merchants,  and  even 
members  of  the  imperial  Japanese  family,  who 
entertained  in  luxurious  style ;  and  it  was  soon 
apparent  that  the  more  the  relations  between 
Russia  and  the  United  States  became  strained, 
the  less  there  was  said  by  Japan's  representa- 


2i6      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

lives  at  the  Russian  capital  about  the  great 
blow  that  Russia  had  given  to  Japan's  fishing 
interests  —  and  various  Russian  newspapers 
announced  that  negotiations  were  under  way 
between  the  two  powers  to  effect  just  such  an 
offensive  and  defensive  alliance  as  that  already 
in  existence  between  Japan  and  England. 
Further,  in  the  summer  of  191 2,  newspapers  that 
are  usually  cognizant  of  such  affairs  in  both 
countries  said  that  the  treaty  had  actually  been 
signed.  Russia  officially  has  denied  it,  but  it 
is  a  fact  that  the  various  diplomatic  chancel- 
leries of  the  Continental  capitals  believe  that 
such  an  understanding  is  in  effect,  and  that  it 
is  credited  in  Washington  —  and  England  no 
longer  protests  against  the  eight-mile  limit. 

Japan,  with  Russia  and  England,  or  with 
Russia  alone,  would  probably  have  but  little 
difficulty  in  expanding  in  any  direction  that 
attracted  her.  When  she  took  Formosa  from 
China  in  the  1894  struggle,  Formosa's  people 
began  to  disappear  and  their  places  to  be  taken 
by  Japanese.  The  same  thing  is  occurring  in 
Korea,  which  Russia  lost  to  Japan  in  1905  — 
and  from  Formosa  to  American  waters  in  the 
Philippines  is  but  thirty  miles.  It  is  but  a 
hundred  miles  to  the  nearest  of  the  Philippines 
and  but  250  miles,  or  a  single  day's  steam, 
for  a  fleet  to  the  ports  of  Luzon  itself.  We  may 
well  be  cautious,  with  these  facta  confronting  us. 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  217 

Another  consequence  of  neutralization  which 
involves  our  relinquishment  of  the  conduct 
of  the  internal  government  of  the  Islands  is 
the  certainty  that  the  progress  of  the  helpless 
people  there  who  constitute  ninety  per  cent  of 
the  entire  population  will  be  at  once  relegated 
definitively  to  the  hopeless  estate  that  was 
their  portion  under  Spain. 

The  reasons  for  this  statement  are  not  at 
all  involved.  A  little  reflection  will  convince 
any  thoughtful  student  of  the  history  of  the 
development  of  nations  that  in  ten  years  or 
so  of  civil  government  we  have  not  regenerated 
the  eight  million  Filipinos.  With  less  than 
one  per  cent  of  the  people  in  1904  with  the 
education  of  an  American  boy  of  fourteen  years, 
and  but  three  per  cent  to-day  qualified  under 
most  liberal  requirements  to  take  part  in 
governmental  affairs,  while  of  all  the  remainder 
of  the  population  in  1904  probably  not  more 
than  two  or  three  per  cent  had  ever  read  any 
book  of  general  information,  progress  toward 
social  revolution  must  have  been  but  slight  in 
the  interim. 

With  all  the  wealth,  all  the  learning,  and  with 
caciquism,  the  gente  illustrada  before  we  came 
had  a  grip  upon  the  other  ninety  per  cent  of 
their  fellow  Filipinos  as  absolute  as  that  of 
master  over  slave.  The  ambition  of  the  gente 
illustrada,  the  ten  per  cent  who  oppose  us  at 


2i8      THE   PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

every  turn,  is  not  the  independence  of  the 
Philippines,  but  the  independence  of  the  gente 
illustrada. 

When  in  the  Islands,  Mr.  Taft  was  visited 
by  a  delegation  of  gentlemen,  who,  as  he  says, 
"desired  independence  at  once  and  made  an 
argument  in  its  favor  based  on  the  ground, 
which  they  solemnly  stated,  that  they  had 
counted  the  number  of  gente  illustrada  or 
educated  people  in  the  Islands,  and  they  had 
figured  out  the  number  of  offices  to  be  filled, 
and  had  found  that  the  number  of  educated 
people  in  the  Islands  was  more  than  double 
the  number  of  offices  to  be  filled.  They  rea- 
soned, therefore,  that  as  the  offices  could  be 
filled  twice,  by  educated  incumbents,  first  by 
one  party  and  then  by  the  other  party,  the 
country  was  ready  for  self-government."  ^ 

And  those  gentlemen  were  as  educated  and 
able,  probably,  as  can  be  found  in  the  Islands. 
According  to  their  ideas,  their  training,  their 
minds,  their  instincts,  they  had  offered  all  the 
argument  that  was  needed  to  demonstrate 
that  the  government  should  be  turned  over  to 
them,  thus  insuring  to  them  the  repossession  of 
their  former  absolute  control  of  the  submerged 
other  ninety  per  cent  of  the  population. 

And  yet,  if  we  neutralize  and  do  turn  the 
governmental  powers  over  to  anybody  in  the 

1  W.  H.  Taft,  "Chautauqua  Address,"  p.  36. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   191 3  219 

Philippines,  we  must  turn  it  over  to  these 
same  ge7ite  illustrada.  They  alone  have  any 
education,  experience  of  affairs,  and  knowledge 
at  all  of  matters  of  state. 

It  is  for  their  interests  lo  obtain  as  much 
power  for  themselves  as  they  can.  There  are 
no  men  on  earth  in  their  situation  who  would 
not  do  that  very  thing.  There  are  not,  and 
there  never  have  been,  gente  illustrada  that 
did  not  do  the  same  thing  in  any  country  and 
that  did  not  do  it  as  long  as  they  could.  The 
Philippine  gente  illustrada,  like  all  their  prede- 
cessors in  history,  will  refuse  to  educate  the 
ninety  per  cent  over  whom  they  have  a  life 
and  death  domination,  because  the  Little  Red 
Schoolhouse  means  the  end  of  their  rule.  The 
gente  illustrada  will  discourage  investments  by 
foreigners,  because  that  means  the  raising  of 
wages,  competition,  and  the  inculcation  of  hope 
for  betterment  that  will  not  long  submit  to 
oppression.  All  books  and  ne.vspapers  v/ill 
be  censored  just  as  they  were  under  Spain. 
Everything  that  means  uplift  to  the  masses 
will  be  discouraged,  because  such  a  movem_ent 
weakens  the  domination  of  the  controlling  ten 
per  cent,  their  incomes,  and  their  honors. 
And  they  will  be  successful  in  these  methods 
of  suppression  until  there  is  created  a  public 
opinion  in  that  Archipelago  so  strong  to  the 
contrary    that    the    gente    illustrada,    for    their 


220      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

very  lives,  will  not  longer  dare  to  persist,  but 
will  yield  with  their  backs  to  the  wall,  fighting 
desperately  every  encroachment  of  republican, 
democratic  ideals,  yielding  one  reform,  one 
concession,  after  the  other,  only  so  rapidly  as 
they  must.  It  is  the  history  of  all  gente  illus- 
trada  of  all  peoples  and  of  all  times.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  globe.  Such  is  human  nature 
and  so  it  will  always  be.  And  there  can  be  no 
public  opinion  until  the  people  can  read,  and 
have  something  to  read. 

The  Philippine  gente  illustrada  have  no  better 
case  to  present  to  us  as  proof  of  what  they 
would  do  than  what  we  know  they  did  in  the 
Aguinaldo  days,  from  1896  to  1901.  They 
had  an  opportunity  then.  There  can  be  no 
reasonable  doubt  it  was  a  rule  of  assassination 
and  cruelty.  It  was  even  more  despotic  and 
oppressive  than  the  Spanish  Government  had 
ever  been.^  It  began  with  a  plot  to  massacre 
every  Spaniard  in  bed,  at  night,  at  a  fixed  toll- 
ing of  the  hour  by  the  church  bells.  There 
were  assassinations  among  the  leaders  in  their 
efforts  to  reach  or  to  maintain  leading  place. 
The  role  played  by  Aguinaldo  in  that  struggle 
will  always  be  open  to  dispute.  Unfavorable 
commentators  say  that  just  when  he  had  Spain 
beaten,  he  and  thirty-four  other  leaders  entered 

*  Address  before  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce,  April  21, 
1904,  by  W.  H.  Taft,  Secretary  of  War,  p.  4. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   191 3  221 

into  a  written  contract  with  Spain  by  which,  for 
eight  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  they 
were  to  retire  from  the  rebellion ;  that  of  this 
sum  but  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  paid 
and  that  all  paid  to  Aguinaldo  alone,  in  ad- 
vance; and  that  he  has  been  living  on  this  as  a 
retired  wealthy  landowner  ever  since,  having 
betrayed  his  army,  his  thirty-four  companions 
in  arms,  and  Spain,  too,  for  he  would  not  stay 
bought,  but  returned  contrary  to  the  contract 
and  began  another  revolution,  which  he  had 
discovered  to  be  a  pretty  profitable  business. 

His  friends,  on  the  other  hand,  say  that  he 
took  the  money  when  he  saw  he  could  not  win 
in  that  particular  rebellion,  his  purpose  being 
to  use  it  to  finance  a  later  uprising,  when  the 
omens  might  prove  more  favorable  —  and  that 
his  later  course  is  evidence  of  the  disinterested- 
ness of  his  conduct. 

All  that  seems  capable  of  absolute  proof  is 
that  he  was  a  poor  school-teacher  before  the 
rebellion ;  that  he  did  retire  from  that  struggle 
together  with  all  his  principal  leaders  —  an  act 
that  broke  the  rebellion ;  that  the  thirty-five 
were  to  have  had  altogether  eight  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  dollars  from  Spain  according  to 
a  written  document,  when  they  laid  down  their 
arms ;  that  of  this  sum  Aguinaldo  was  to  have 
four  hundred  thousand  dollars ;  that  Spain  de- 
faulted the  balance  that  was  to  go  to  the  other 


222      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

thirty-four  and  besides  defaulted  all  of  the  eight 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars  except  the 
two  hundred  thousand  dollars  which,  under  the 
terms  of  the  contract,  had  to  be  paid  —  and 
was  so  paid  —  to  Aguinaldo  in  cash  before  he 
would  cease  war  operations ;  that  he  and  his 
leaders  retired  from  the  rebellion,  went  to  China, 
purchased  some  arms,  and  in  a  few  months 
returned  and  led  a  second  rebellion ;  and  candor 
makes  it  necessary  to  say,  without  prejudice 
or  design,  that  Aguinaldo  has  been  financially 
independent  ever  since.  For  similar  reason  it 
should  also  be  added  that  there  are  many  sources 
from  which  Aguinaldo  might  legitimately  have 
become  as  well-to-do  as  he  is. 

The  important  thing  about  the  whole  con- 
troversy is  that  it  suggests  much,  if  it  be  not 
typical  of  much,  that  surrounds  any  complete 
history  of  the  Aguinaldo  administration. 

I  have  talked  with  Aguinaldo  in  his  own 
home  about  his  views  of  our  occupation.  He 
is  bitterly  opposed  to  everything  that  we  have 
done.  He  believes  in  none  of  it.  He  told  me 
so  in  every  word  and  look,  and  he  is  by  far  the 
greatest  man  the  Filipinos  have  produced,  when 
deeds  done  are  taken  as  the  criterion.  No  other 
native  has  been  able  to  organize  the  people 
Into  any  coherent  efi^ort  —  and  he  is  not  yet 
forty-five  years  of  age.  If  we  put  the  gente 
illustrada  into  actual  power,  it  is  unlikely  that 


THE  PROBLEM   IN   191 3  223 

he  will  remain  quietly  at  Cavite  Viejo,  where 
he  may  now  be  found  upon  his  farm.  His  is 
the  only  national  figure  on  the  ground.  We 
should  have  another  Aguinaldo  government, 
in  effect  and  all  substance,  even  if  he  himself 
were  not  it. 

With  so  great  a  prize  at  stake  as  the  leader- 
ship —  one  might  almost  say  ownership  —  of 
eight  million  most  ignorant  natives,  taken  as  a 
whole,  with  bitter  hatred  between  some  of  the 
tribes,  with  the  inevitable  jealousies  that  must 
exist  among  those  anxious  for  the  supreme 
power,  he  would  be  rash  who  would  confidently 
project  the  outcome  as  one  of  peace  and  good 
order.  Barring  the  sudden  rising  of  some 
giant  who  has  not  yet  appeared,  the  lists  which 
would  determine  the  identity  of  the  new  leader 
would  contain  only  a  large  number  of  men  of 
about  the  same  order  of  ability,  with  all  the 
chances  favoring  the  man  who  could  make  the 
most  seductive  speech  to  the  ignorant  masses. 

Yet  there  are  those  who  urge  that  neutraliza- 
tion should  be  given  a  trial  and  perhaps  given 
trial  now,  as  soon  as  we  can  make  the  necessary 
agreements  with  the  interested  nations,  if  they 
can  be  made,  which  is  not  at  all  clear.  Their 
reasons  appear  chiefly  to  be  about  as  follows : 
Given  control,  the  geyite  illustrada  and  the  people 
at  large  will  learn  more  about  how  to  conduct 
and  how  not  to  conduct  a  government  in  a  year 


224      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

than  they  will  learn  under  any  tutelage  In  a  cen- 
tury. It  is  said  that  it  is  responsibility  that 
develops  men ;  and  that  when  President  Grant 
was  asked  by  the  late  emperor  of  Japan  how  the 
Japanese  could  best  be  taught  to  vote,  the  great 
soldier  sententiously  responded,  "By  voting" 
—  and  therefore  the  best  way  for  the  Filipinos 
to  learn  to  govern  is  by  governing. 

It  is  pointed  out  that  we  have  laid  great 
stress  upon  withholding  independence  from  the 
Filipinos  until  we  are  sure  they  can  maintain 
a  stable  government,  and  maintain  peace  and 
order,  whereas  if  we  wait  until  we  are  sure  of 
that,  they  will  never  be  free,  for  nobody  can 
maintain  peace  and  order  always.  We  are 
not  going  to  do  it  out  there  very  long,  it  is 
asserted,  nor  is  England  going  to  continue  doing 
it  indefinitely  in  India.  We  are  told  that  in 
the  latter  country,  the  moment  the  natives 
see  that  the  white  garrison  is  weak  enough,  the 
days  of  1857  will  recur,  when  the  Sepoys,  the 
most  favored  theretofore  by  the  English,  sprang 
at  every  white  throat  in  an  instant. 

It  is  also  urged  that  in  our  present  course  we 
may  be  doing  too  much  for  the  Filipino  for  his 
own  good ;  that  he  will  be  in  the  position  of  a 
son  of  a  rich  man^  about  the  most  dangerous 
height  that  a  boy  can  occupy,  and  with  not  half 
the  chance  of  success  that  the  newsboy  has, 
whose  very  struggles  make  him  able  to  be  sue- 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  225 

cessful;  that  the  very  failures  and  struggles 
of  a  government  by  Filipinos  will  make  it 
strong  and  enduring.  It  is  observed  that  even 
if  the  Filipino  does  his  worst,  he  could  hardly 
eclipse  involving  the  entire  Archipelago  for  four 
years  in  a  civil  war  between  brothers  as  an 
achievement;  and  that  the  way  to  build  a 
nation  is  through  its  very  wars,  its  revolutions, 
its  rebellions,  its  assassinations,  its  disgraces, 
its  shames,  and  its  consequent  revulsions  to 
better  things.  It  is  said  that  the  Filipinos  will 
need  great  men,  and  are  they,  Minerva-like, 
full-panoplied,  and  endowed  with  great  wis- 
dom, to  leap  from  out  the  forehead  of  Jupiter  ? 
The  answer,  they  tell  us,  is  that  only  great 
events  v/ill  make  men  great,  or  bring  them  to 
the  front,  which  is  the  same  thing;  that  great 
crises  are  the  fires  that  temper  the  steel  that  will 
bend  but  not  break,  with  which  nations  must 
be  welded. 

Finally,  those  urging  these  views  frequently 
refer  to  the  recent  rapid  rise  of  Japan  as  an 
earnest  of  what  an  Oriental  nation  can  accom- 
plish with  modern.  Occidental  facilities. 

As  to  most  of  these  arguments,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  they  are  entitled  to  very  great 
weight,  that  they  go  to  the  very  roots  of  the 
problem,  and  that  no  informed  man,  of  his  own 
knowledge,  may  say  absolutely  that  they  do  or  do 
not  indicate  what  would  be  best  for  the  Filipinos. 


226      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

But  there  Is  one  thing  of  which  we  can  be 
confident,  and  that  Is  that  the  comparison  with 
Japan  Is  not  effective.  In  the  first  place,  Japan 
is  not  a  tropical  country.  It  lies  in  the  temper- 
ate zone,  Its  northern  point  reaching  to  about 
the  same  degree  as  that  of  Maine,  and  its  south- 
ern limits  corresponding  to  New  Orleans,  with 
practically  the  same  variations  of  temperature 
as  we  possess.  Its  people  have  the  quick,  active 
minds  and  bodies  of  the  other  inhabitants  of 
that  zone.  Brought  down  to  the  Philippines, 
the  Japanese  work  no  better  than  do  the  native 
islanders. 

But  most  Important  of  all.  Is  the  fact  that 
Japan  has  arisen  by  her  own  efforts.  No  other 
nation  has  supplied  her  with  roads,  railroads, 
schools,  hospitals,  harbors,  a  stable  government, 
the  telegraph,  the  telephone,  the  modern  weapons 
of  defense  and  attack.  To  be  sure,  the  Occident 
taught  her  these  things,  but  It  was  because 
Japan  had  the  ambition  and  good  sense  to  see 
that  she  must  acquire  these  engines  of  progress 
if  she  was  to  be  one  of  the  Powers.  She  sent 
her  boys  and  men  here  to  see  how  we  constructed 
these  things,  and  employed  them.  She  hired 
our  experts  to  go  across  the  Pacific  and  install 
them.  But  always  she  was  in  control.  If  mis- 
takes were  made,  It  was  Japan  who  paid.  She 
directed  the  Innovations,  using  us  merely  as 
encyclopedias;   and   then,  as  soon  as  she  had 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  227 

mastered  her  lesson,  she  packed  our  experts 
back  home  or  else  continued  them  as  em- 
ployees merely.  She  struck  out  for  herself, 
and  she  will  not  disappear,  for  she  has  learned 
her  trade. 

The  Filipinos  have  not  learned  it.  They 
have  not  even  begun  to  serve  their  time.  As 
miraculously  as  if  out  of  the  skies,  they  have 
been  given  the  attributes  of  modern  civilization 
without  one  struggle  or  any  insistent  desire  to 
obtain  them.  It  is  a  house  founded  upon  the 
sands,  not  upon  the  permanent  foundation  that 
is  builded  of  the  knowledge  that  comes  only 
with  the  actual  experiences  of  the  struggles  and 
failures  of  long-continued,  determined  effort ; 
and  until  they  have  developed  a  national 
spirit  that  calls  for,  yes  demands  even,  a  mod- 
ern civilization,  it  is  idle  to  compare  their 
future  with  that  of  a  nation  which  has  done 
that  very  thing. 

There  remains  to  consider  but  the  third 
possible  policy  we  may  pursue :  the  indefinite 
continuance  of  the  policy  we  declared  at  the 
beginning  of  our  occupation  and  to  which  we 
have,  as  best  we  could,  tenaciously  held  ever 
since,  to  wit,  in  the  words  of  McKinley : 

"To  take  to  those  distant  people  the  prin- 
ciples of  liberty,  of  freedom,  of  conscience,  and 
of  opportunity  that  are  enjoyed  by  the  people 
of  the  United  States." 


228      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

With  this  in  view,  Governor  Forbes  pub- 
lished the  following  message  to  the  Filipinos  : 

"To  the  Filipinos  I  say,  turn  your  undivided 
attention  to  the  material  development  of  your 
country  and  rest  confident  in  the  good  faith 
of  the  United  States.  If  it  were  the  desire 
of  the  United  States  to  prevent  the  Filipinos 
from  becoming  a  progressive,  happy,  and  united 
people,  strong  in  the  accumulations  of  wealth 
and  knowledge  and  capability  of  nationality, 
we  should  not  be  devoting  our  entire  energies 
toward  the  accomplishment  of  those  measures 
which  make  such  a  nationality  possible ;  we 
should  not  be  providing  all  of  the  people  of  the 
Islands  with  a  common  language ;  we  should 
not  be  maintaining  different  organizations  of 
armed  Filipinos  drilled  in  the  art  of  war,  aggre- 
gating ten  thousand  men,  of  whom  five  thou- 
sand are  paid  from  the  Treasury  of  the  United 
States  as  United  States  troops ;  we  should  not 
be  extending  the  privileges  of  occupying  the 
more  important  posts  in  the  government  serv- 
ice to  Filipinos ;  we  should  not  be  devoting 
our  first  efforts  toward  binding  the  Filipinos 
together  into  a  closer  union  by  those  ties  which 
come  from  improved  means  of  communica- 
tion, as  post-offices,  telegraph  and  telephones, 
railroads,  roads,  subsidized  steamboats,  and 
so  forth." 

If  Governor  Forbes  be  retained  in  his  posi- 
tion, he  will  steadily  shape  his  administration 
toward  securing  the  development  of  Island  re- 
sources   through    American    capital,    in    order      d 


Highest  Types  of  the  Tagalog  Gente  Illustrada. 

Governors  of  Tagalog  Provinces  in   1904. 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  229 

that  the  revenues  of  the  local  government  may 
thus  be  increased  to  a  figure  that  will  permit 
more  rapid  expenditure  upon  the  roads,  rail- 
roads, harbors,  and  schools,  our  chief  civilizing 
forces. 

With  almost  the  same  assurance,  it  may  be 
asserted  that  he  will  secure  this  capital,  for  he 
knows  how  to  do  it.  Before  he  went  to  the 
Islands  at  all,  the  securing  of  capital  and  Its 
investment  was  his  daily  work.  The  financiers 
will  follow  his  recommendations  in  the  end, 
even  if  the  actual  investment  of  the  money  be 
somewhat  postponed  because  of  the  present 
opposition  of  the  gente  illustrada. 

We  shall  make  steady  if  slow  progress.  We 
have  done  so  from  the  beginning,  and  there 
would  seem  to  be  no  good  reason  why  the  record 
cannot  be  indefinitely  continued.  Unquestion- 
ably we  can  give  the  submerged  ninety  per 
cent  of  the  Filipinos  a  better  opportunity  to 
improve  their  condition  than  they  ever  had  or 
can  hope  to  secure  under  any  other  regime.  It 
is  a  chance  and  a  chance  only  that  many  of 
them  need.  The  United  States  has  millions 
of  immigrants  who  know  what  that  means. 

Much  has  been  said  of  the  Filipino's  pre- 
sumed lack  of  thrift,  just  as  it  used  to  be  said 
of  the  Irish  before  they  came  to  America  and 
showed  the  world  what  they  could  do  with  a 
fair  opportunity. 


230      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

For  example,  it  has  been  contended  that  the 
Filipino  cannot  be  depended  upon  for  con- 
secutive work.  He  certainly  could  not  be 
under  Spain,  for  he  had  no  assurance  that  he 
would  be  paid  at  all,  and  whenever  he  did  re- 
ceive remuneration  it  was  frequently  in  bad  coin. 
He  had  no  incentive. 

We  met  this  apparent  indifference  as  soon  as 
we  went  to  the  Islands,  but  we  have  had  little 
difficulty  with  it.  One  of  the  most  prominent 
instances  indicating  the  possibilities  of  these 
people  appears  in  the  history  of  the  construc- 
tion of  the  street  railway  system  in  Manila. 
Some  five  hundred  natives  were  set  at  the  work. 
Upon  the  second  day  only  about  a  third  of 
them  were  on  hand.  The  day  after  that,  twice 
as  many  came,  and  so  it  went,  up  and  down,  for 
a  fortnight.  No  expostulations  of  the  con- 
tractor were  of  any  avail.  The  workmen  were 
unable  to  see  why  he  should  complain,  as  he 
paid  them  nothing  when  they  did  not  labor. 
The  response  to  that  was  the  establishment  of 
a  rule  that  absence  meant  discharge.  That 
ended  the  difficulty  for  the  time,  but  after  some 
weeks  there  were  wholesale  desertions  again, 
this  time  because  the  workers  wanted  to  visit 
their  families.  The  proximate  cause  of  the 
Balangiga  massacre  of  our  troops  was  due  to  an 
officer's  insistence  that  there  be  no  concession 
to  native   employees,  permitting   such  returns 


THE  PROBLEM  IN   1913  231 

to  the  family  roof.  The  American  who  had 
charge  of  the  Manila  construction  was  wiser. 
He  saw  that  a  Filipino  will  not  long  remain 
absent  from  his  home.  The  contractor  soon 
discovered  a  remedy.  He  merely  moved  the 
homes  to  the  work.  Then,  again,  the  men  were 
unable  to  accomplish  much  after  the  noon 
hour.  A  little  investigation  disclosed  the 
reason ;  they  ate  nothing,  practically,  between 
the  two  working  periods,  but  spent  the  time  in 
sleep.  By  handing  each  laborer  a  dime  just 
before  twelve  o'clock  daily,  and  obtaining  the 
presence  of  vendors  of  nutritious  foods  when 
the  whistle  blew,  the  efficiency  of  each  man 
was  doubled. 

Several  illustrations  to  the  same  general 
effect  are  to  be  found  in  Mr.  Hamilton  M. 
Wright's  useful  volume,  where  he  says  :  * 

"Perhaps  the  most  striking  example  that 
could  be  given  of  the  success  that  may  come 
to  the  Anglo-Saxon  that  makes  good  workmen 
of  the  native  population  and  improves  their 
condition  as  well  as  his  own,  is  to  be  found  in 
the  marvelous  experience  of  Mr.  John  Orr, 
of  Dalupaon,  a  town  founded  by  him  in  South- 
ern Luzon.  Mr.  Orr  went  to  the  Philippines 
fourteen  years  ago  and  engaged  in  lumbering 
the  inexhaustible  mahoganies,  ebonies,  and 
construction  woods.     When  he  settled  at  Dalu- 

1  Hamilton  M.  Wright,  "Handbook  of  the  Philippines," 
pp.  347-350,  McClurg  &  Co.,  Chicago,  1907. 


232      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

paon,  eight  years  ago,  the  people  of  the  vicinity, 
who  were  a  wild  tribe  of  the  great  Bicol  Fili- 
pinos, lived  in  trees  and  subsisted  on  roots,  fish 
that  were  cast  up  by  the  sea,  and  the  precari- 
ous fruits  of  the  chase.  Mr.  Orr  taught  these 
people  how  to  work,  and  he  paid  them  for  their 
work.  They  became  efficient  laborers,  and 
to-day  his  foremen  and  skilled  foresters  require 
no  supervision.  At  the  present  time  there 
are  in  the  vicinity  about  three  hundred  families, 
who  live  in  good  houses  of  native  construction, 
wear  good  clothes,  go  to  church,  and  send  their 
children  to  the  schools  provided  by  Mr.  Orr. 
That  the  most  of  the  Filipino  people  do  best 
under  paternal  administration  is  attested  by 
the  immunity  from  various  disasters  which  has 
attended  Mr.  Orr's  workers.  When,  about 
half  a  decade  ago,  the  cholera  broke  out  in 
Ambos  Camarines  Province  and  destroyed 
about  eighteen  per  cent  of  the  population,  Mr. 
Orr  quarantined  his  little  community  by  placing 
an  armed  sentry  at  each  trail  leading  from  the 
forest.  Not  a  person  was  taken  with  the 
cholera.  When  the  insurrection  broke  out, 
Mr.  Orr's  men  remained  at  work.  When  grim 
famine  followed  the  insurrection,  and  tens  of 
thousands  perished  for  food  or  succumbed  to 
disease,  and  when  our  Government  was  ex- 
pending millions  of  dollars  in  the  importation 
of  rice  to  relieve  the  famine-stricken  districts, 
Mr.  Orr  had  abundant  food  for  his  employees. 
.  .  .  And  so  through  war,  famine,  and  pes- 
tilence, this  pioneer  kept  his  own  people  busy 
and  happy,  and  was  at  the  same  time  carrying 
gn  a  profitable  venture.     Some  of  his  workers 


THE   PROBLEM  IN   1913  233 

have  never  left  the  cuttings,  and  only  three  of 
them  have  ever  left  him  to  seek  employment 
elsewhere.  None  have  ever  expressed  genuine 
dissatisfaction.  .  .  . 

"Mr.  Frank  C.  Cook,  president  of  the  Davao 
Planters'  Association,  owns  a  plantation  on  the 
Balutaca  River,  forty-five  miles  south  of  Davao, 
Mindanao  Island.  When  first  he  went  to  the 
region,  in  the  early  nineties,  Mr.  Cook  came 
upon  a  lovely  valley  in  the  midst  of  a  jungle. 
The  scattered  tribes  living  about  — -  pagan 
Bogobos  and  others  —  were  wild,  timid,  and 
quarrelsome.  Mr.  Cook  at  first  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  get  into  communication  with  them, 
but  by  living  there  alone  he  won  their  confi- 
dence. Under  his  direction  a  village  street 
was  laid  out,  trees  were  planted,  and  houses 
built.  The  wild  Malay  showed  a  willingness 
to  work,  and  sought  food,  clothing,  and  mer- 
chandise. At  the  end  of  two  years,  Mr.  Cook 
had  a  village  of  about  two  thousand  people 
upon  his  plantation ;  to-day  he  can  put  a 
hundred  extra  men  to  work  In  the  fields  at 
any  time.  The  people  are  simple-minded  and 
industrious ;  they  have  never  molested  any 
white  man,  nor  committed  any  violent  crimes 
among  themselves." 

These  are  not  isolated  cases,  but  typical 
ones,  and  their  continual  recurrence  will  help 
wherever  they  be  found.  In  time,  similar 
results  may  be  expected  all  over  the  Archi- 
pelago. 

But  we  shall  never  succeed  in  replacing  the 


234      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

Oriental  minds  of  the  Filipinos  with  Caucasian 
ones,  nor  Filipino  natural  traits  with  those  of 
our  own  race.  If  there  is  any  means  by  which 
these  things  can  be  secured,  it  is  by  miscegena- 
tion, and  even  then  we  cannot  be  certain  of  the 
issue,  for  no  crossed  animal  has  ever  yet  become 
entirely  like  his  father  and  unlike  his  mother, 
or  vice  versa.  The  progeny  is  like  neither. 
He  is  a  new  being.  But  this  phase  is  probably 
not  to  be  considered  seriously,  further  than  to 
asseverate  that  it  is  not  to  be  the  solution. 
It  never  has  been  in  any  other  similar  problem. 
Yet  it  is  necessary  to  say  that  the  exhibition  of 
any  unusual  ability  by  a  Filipino  is  always  the 
proximate  cause  of  an  inquiry  into  the  man's 
ancestry,  for  the  Filipino  with  a  father  of 
Chinese,  Japanese,  Spanish,  French,  British, 
or  American  blood  is  usually  a  great  improve- 
ment in  ability  upon  his  mother's  people. 
The  vigor  of  the  foreigners  is  usually  so  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  natives  that  an  inter- 
mixture usually  means  a  long  advance  in  brain 
and  character  power.  A  similar  result  we 
must  acknowledge  to  follow  the  union  of  the 
negro  and  the  American. 

Considerable  space  was  devoted  in  the  first 
chapter  to  the  natural  traits  of  the  Filipino. 
They  are,  in  the  main,  the  same  as  those  of 
almost  all  the  Orientals.  Those  tendencies  do 
not  lend  themselves   readily  to  the  establish- 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  235 

ment  of  a  modern  democracy  through  their  own 
efforts,  or  its  continuance,  if  it  is  anyhow  sup- 
plied to  them,  whenever  their  ideas  are  those 
that  control.  Were  they,  then,  to  be  put  in 
possession  of  their  government  now,  their  gov- 
ernment would  be  one  upon  Oriental  lines. 
If  they  are  put  in  possession  of  their  government 
a  hundred  years  hence,  their  government  will 
be  one  upon  Oriental  lines ;  and  so  far  as  his- 
tory goes  back,  no  Oriental  government  has 
ever  been  one  in  which  republican  ideals  or 
privileges  has  obtained.  It  is  contrary  to  in- 
born tendencies  of  the  people  of  that  hemi- 
sphere. 

We  must  know,  then,  once  for  all,  that  there 
will  never  be  a  real  United  States  of  the  Phil- 
ippines, no  matter  when  we  turn  the  Islands 
back  to  their  people. 

And  more,  there  is  no  assurance  that  we  ever 
shall  turn  them  back.  Indeed,  there  is  con- 
siderable probability  that  the  gente  illustrada 
and  the  American  Anti-Imperialists  are  correct 
in  asserting  that  if  Americans  invest  heavily 
in  the  Philippines,  the  United  States  will  never 
relinquish  the  Islands.  Certainly  every  Amer- 
ican concern  with  money  there  will  do  every- 
thing it  can  to  retain  the  protection  of  our  flag; 
and  with  a  hundred  million  dollars  of  American 
capital  in  the  Archipelago,  there  would  be  created 
a  most  powerful  opponent  of  any  alteration  of 


236      THE  PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

our  present  relations  to  the  Island  Government. 
For  once,  at  any  rate,  the  Anti-Imperialists 
see  things  as  they  are.  It  is  but  the  simple 
truth  to  admit  that  if  we  get  this  American 
capital  into  the  Islands,  it  will  very  likely  get 
us  into  them  so  far  that  we  shall  never  get  out, 
even  if  capital  proved  the  only  active  objector 
to  our  withdrawal. 

But  other  opposition  there  is  bound  to  be, 
and  that  which  will  have  little  less  effect 
upon  Congress  or  upon  public  sentiment  in 
the  United  States :  and  that  is  the  constant 
working  of  many  of  our  American  officials  out 
there  to  keep  our  flag  at  the  masthead  —  not  a 
bad  sentiment.  That  is  mere  human  nature, 
and  in  justice  to  those  concerned,  it  should  be 
said  that  probably  their  opposition  to  our  with- 
drawal will  be  largely  unconscious.  The  power 
that  they  will  exert  will  be  very  hard  to  nega- 
tive, because  they  are  upon  the  ground ;  and  it 
will  be  rare  that  a  stranger  to  the  Islands  can 
successfully  refute  a  statement  of  those  so  much 
better  informed  through  their  personal  contact 
with  Island  problems.  In  fact,  it  will  be  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  gainsay  their  combined 
reports. 

If  stay  there  we  do,  there  are  some  results 
that  can  now  be  foretold  with  considerable 
accuracy.  For  one  thing,  there  is  to  be  faced 
the  continual  murmur  of  the  word  "Independ- 


THE   PROBLEM   IN   1913  237 

ence,"  that  ever  since  Agulnaldo's  rebellion  has 
been  in  the  mouths  of  the  gente  illustrada.  The 
English  and  the  other  European  colonizing 
peoples  know  what  they  are  talking  about  when 
they  criticize  us  for  telling  the  Filipinos  that 
we  shall  set  them  free,  that  everything  we  are 
out  there  for  is  to  prepare  them  for  that  state, 
and  that  we  are  giving  them  schools  because 
that  will  make  them  our  equals.  These  foreign 
critics  have  always  said  that  the  natives  would 
some  day  rise  against  us.  It  certainly  is  ex- 
tremely probable,  considering  the  resiliency  of 
that  term  "  Independence."  It  acts  like  a  germ 
that  never  leaves  any  system  it  enters.  It 
multiplies  until  the  fever  of  it  possesses  men 
utterly.  It  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon.  It 
seems  endowed  with  magic  and  boundless  power. 
It  possesses  immortality. 

It  seems  folly  to  believe  that  these  extremely 
bright,  intelligent,  ambitious,  proud  gente  il- 
lustrada are  going  to  sit  by  tamely  until  we  tell 
them  that  we  think  they  can  run  their  govern- 
ment. Certainly  the  gente  illustrada  will  never 
agree  with  us  as  to  just  when  they  arrive  at  the 
state  of  development  we  demand  of  them.  In- 
deed, they  are  quite  sure  that  they  have  reached 
it  already.  In  that  they  doubtless  disagree 
with  us  at  this  moment  by  some  centuries ;  for 
if  it  be  true  that  we  are  not  going  to  set  these 
people  free  until  they  can  run,  or  we  think  they 


238      THE   PHILIPPINE   PROBLEM 

can  and  will  run,  a  pure  democracy  like  our 
own,  that  time  never  will  arrive,  for  the  Oriental 
will  never  want  a  pure  democracy,  as  it  is  con- 
trary to  his  idea  of  what  a  government  should 
be  —  and  he  will  have  his  way  as  soon  as  he 
can  procure  it. 

But  if  we  are  to  persist  in  this  hopeless  task 
of  making  a  Caucasian  mind  in  an  Oriental 
skull,  the  day  will  eventually  come  when  we 
shall  have  educated  so  many  Filipinos  that  they 
will  probably  rebel  at  some  of  our  injustices. 
If  they  do  not  revolt  under  such  provocation,  for 
example,  as  our  delay  in  giving  them  the  1909 
tariff  laws,  certainly  our  efforts  to  educate  them 
with  American  ideals  will  have  accomplished 
little.  If  they  rebel,  we  shall,  of  course,  re- 
conquer them,  and  then  very  likely  take  their 
uprising  as  another  evidence  of  their  inability 
to  set  up  a  stable  government,  with  the  result 
that  we  shall  have  a  fresh  reason  why  inde- 
pendence be  withheld  from  them  for  another 
century  or  so. 

If  we  remain,  we  shall  have  to  continue  in- 
definitely our  expenditure  of  some  millions  with 
each   new  year. 

Then,  too,  we  shall  govern  the  Islands  often 
badly,  at  times  very  badly,  because  the  Congress 
at  Washington  will  not  pass  legislation  that 
will  benefit  or  even  save  the  Filipinos,  if  such 
action  injure  American  interests  and  particularly 


THE   PROBLEM  IN   1913  239 

powerful  American  industries.  Whenever  the 
two  countries  clash,  it  will  be  the  Filipinos  who 
will  suffer.  They  are  so  far  away  that  we  shall 
not  hear  their  cries  of  distress  often  enough  to 
be  kept  aroused  until  we  can  answer  their  great 
need.  It  took  about  ten  years  to  get  the  Con- 
gress to  grant  free  trade  between  the  United 
States  and  the  Islands,  although  the  latter  were 
prostrate  industrially  because  of  the  lack  of 
this  very  legislation.  The  American  sugar  and 
tobacco  interests,  in  the  main,  were  able  to 
postpone  for  this  long  period  of  time  the  only 
laws  that  would  afford  relief. 

There  will  always  be  similar  neglect  so  long 
as  the  Islands  be  dependent  upon  the  American 
Congress,  not  because  that  body  is  any  more 
selfish  or  neglectful  than  any  other  correspond- 
ing body  of  a  great  nation  —  but  because  the 
American  Congress  will  be  and  has  been  just 
like  all  other  Congresses  in  history  in  their 
handling  of  similar  situations.  The  story  of  the 
treatment  by  the  British  Parliament  of  Eng- 
land's colonies  in  this  country  and  of  Ireland 
is  the  only  precedent  that  need  be  cited. 

Such  is  the  Philippine  Problem  in  191 3. 

The  American  Congress  must  decide  the 
policy  the  United  States  shall  pursue. 

He  would  be  extremely  bold  who  could  feel 
sure  which  in  the  end  will  be  the  best  course. 


240      THE  PHILIPPINE  PROBLEM 

either  for  the  Filipinos  or  for  the  United  States. 
But  it  must  be  evident  that  the  logic  of  the  en- 
tire situation,  especially  in  view  of  the  awaken- 
ing of  the  Far  East  and  of  the  extraordinary 
diplomatic  developments  of  1911-1912,  inevi- 
tably may  compel  us  to  continue  as  we  have 
begun. 


FINIS 


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14  DAY  USE 

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